A letter from Peter Abelard ()

Translated letter:

To instruct you and your spiritual daughters, I shall reply succinctly and in a few words, if I can, to your charity, which has raised the question of the profession to which you are vowed: that is, concerning the origin of the religious life of nuns. The order of both monks and nuns was given the form of its religious life by our Lord Jesus Christ, although even before the Incarnation some early form of this life had existed among men as well as women. Thus when Jerome writes to Eustochium, he refers to the “Sons of the Prophets, of whom we read in the Old Testament as living like monks,” and so on. The Evangelist (Luke 2:25) describes Anna as a widow who devoted herself assiduously to the service of the Temple and to divine worship, and who, with Simeon, was worthy of receiving the Lord in the Temple and being filled with the spirit of prophecy. Christ, the consummation of justice and the end of all good, came in the fullness of time to perfect the good already begun and to reveal what was hidden. As he had come to call both sexes and to redeem them, so he deigned to unite them in the true monkhood of his congregation. In this way, both men and women might be given authority for this calling and all might be shown the perfect way of life that they should imitate. With his apostles and the other disciples, there was a group of holy women, including his mother, who had renounced the world and given up all possessions in order to possess Christ alone, as it is written (Ps. 15:5): “It is the Lord I claim for my prize.” They did devoutly what is required of all who have been converted from the world and they were initiated into the common life, according to the rule given by the Lord (Luke 14:13): “None of you can be my disciple if he does not take leave of all that he possesses.” The sacred Scriptures carefully record how devoutly these holy women and true nuns followed Christ and how gratefully both Christ himself and later the apostles honored their devotion. We read in the Gospel (Luke 7:36–39) that a Pharisee who had taken the Lord into his house complained and was rebuked by him, and that the service of the woman who was a sinner was set far above the hospitality of this man. We read also (John 12:1–3) that when Lazarus, after being restored to life, sat down with the others, his sister Martha alone served the tables, and Mary poured a pound of precious ointment over the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of this precious ointment. Its costliness led Judas into greed, because it seemed so foolishly used, and the other disciples also became indignant about it. While Martha was busy with the food, Mary dispensed the ointment, and the one refreshed the weary Christ outwardly while the other restored him inwardly. Nor does the text of the Gospel record that any but women administered to the Lord. These women had dedicated their own possessions to his daily sustenance; and so it was they, above all, who provided the essentials of life for him. He showed himself a most humble servant to the disciples at table and in the washing of feet. But we do not hear that he accepted this service from any of the disciples or, indeed, from any man. Women alone, as I have said, performed these and other services of humanity. Just as Martha rendered service in one way, so Mary did in another, and in so doing she was as devoted as she had been sinful earlier. The Lord performed the service of washing feet with water poured in a basin. But she rendered it to him with tears of compunction drawn from within, not with water obtained outside. The Lord dried the feet of the disciples with a towel after they had been washed. But she used her hair instead of a towel and, over and above, she added the anointing with ointments, which the Lord is nowhere said to have used. Who is not aware, moreover, that a woman so far presumed on his favor that she anointed his head with ointments as well? This ointment was not, in fact, poured out of the alabaster box, but it is said to have been spilled when the alabaster was broken, in order to express the ardent desire of an extreme devotion, which felt that this box, having served for so great a purpose, should not be kept for any further use. In this also, she demonstrated by her actions what Daniel had prophesied earlier would happen when the Most Holy was anointed (Dan. 9:24). For behold, a woman anoints the Most Holy, and thus at once she proclaims him to be the one in whom she believes, and the one whom the prophet foretold. What, I ask, is this kindness of the Lord, or what is the dignity of women, that he should allow both his head and his feet to be anointed by no one but a woman? What is this privilege of the weaker sex that Christ the most high, anointed from his very conception with all the ointments of the Holy Spirit, should also be anointed by a woman and that, as though consecrating him king and priest with bodily sacraments, she should make him in body the Christ, that is to say, the Anointed? We know that a stone was first anointed by the patriarch Jacob (Gen. 28:18), as a symbol of the Lord, and that afterward only men were permitted to perform the anointing of priests or kings, or any sacraments of unction, although sometimes women may presume to baptize. The patriarch sanctified a stone for the Temple, and now the priest sanctifies the altar with oil. So men imprint the sacraments by signs. But the woman worked in truth itself, as the Word himself bore witness when he said (Mark 14:6): “She did well to treat me so.” Christ himself was anointed by a woman; Christians are anointed by men: that is, the Head by a woman, and the members by men. It is recorded also that the woman poured out the ointment well; she did not drop it on his head, following what the bride sings of him in the Canticles (1:2): “Thy very name spoken soothes the heart like flow of oil.” The abundance of that ointment, as it ran down from the head to the hem of the garment, is also mystically prefigured by the Psalmist, who says (132:2): “Gracious as balm poured on the head till it flows down onto the beard; balm that flowed down Aaron’s beard, and reached the very skirts of his robe.” We read, as Jerome also remarks in commenting on the twenty-sixth Psalm, that David received a threefold anointment and so did Christ and the Christians. For the feet of the Lord and his head received the unction from a woman. But after he was dead, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, as John relates (19:38), buried him with spices. Christians, too, are sanctified by a threefold unction, once in baptism, a second time in confirmation, and a third time in the anointing of the sick. Consider, then, the dignity of women, by whom Christ, when he was living, was twice anointed, on the head and on the feet, and from whom he thus received the sacraments of kingship and priesthood. The ointment of myrrh and aloes, which is used to preserve the bodies of the dead, prefigured the future incorruptibility of the Lord’s body, the incorruptibility the elect also shall enjoy in the Resurrection. But the earlier anointing by the woman displays his special dignity both as King and as Priest: the anointing of the head, the higher dignity, and that of the feet, the lower dignity. He receives the sacrament of kingship from a woman, he who refused to accept the kingdom offered to him by men and fled from those who would have taken him by force to make him king. The woman performs the sacrament of the heavenly, not the earthly King, of him, I say, who said of himself afterward ( John 18:36): “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” Bishops are full of pride when, with the acclaim of the people, they anoint earthly kings, and when they consecrate mortal priests adorned with splendid golden vestments. Often they bless those whom the Lord curses. The humble woman, with no change of garment, with no prepared ritual, even in the face of the apostles’ anger, performed these sacraments for Christ, not by the office of prelacy, but in the zeal of devotion. O great constancy of faith, O inestimable ardor of charity, which believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things! The Pharisee murmurs when the feet of the Lord are anointed by the woman who was a sinner. The apostles are openly indignant because she has also presumed to touch his head. Each time the woman’s faith perseveres unmoved, confident in the kindness of the Lord, and on neither occasion does the support of the Lord’s praise fail her. How acceptable, indeed, and how pleasing the Lord found her ointment, he himself makes clear when, asking that it be kept for him, he says to the indignant Judas (John 12:7): “Let her alone; enough that she should keep it for the day when my body is prepared for burial.” This is as if to say: Do not reject this service to the living, lest you deprive the dead of the service of her devotion. It is certainly true that holy women also prepared spices for the Lord’s burial, which this woman would then have been less concerned to do on that earlier occasion, if she had been humiliated by being rejected. For the disciples were indignant at this presumption on the woman’s part and, as Mark says, complained against her. But the Lord himself, after turning away their wrath with soft answers, praised this offering so highly that he wanted it to be recorded in the Gospel, to be preached with the Gospel wherever it was preached, in memory and in praise of the woman who had performed this act, for which she was accused of great presumption. It is nowhere related that the services of any other persons were so highly praised and so fully sanctioned by the authority of the Lord. In preferring the poor widow’s charity to all the offerings of the Temple, he also clearly shows how pleasing the devotion of women is to him. Peter, indeed, dared to boast that he and his fellow-apostles had given up everything for Christ, and on welcoming the Lord at his longed-for coming, Zacchaeus gave away half his goods to the poor and, if he had taken anything fraudulently, he restored it fourfold. Many others incurred greater expenses in and for Christ, and made far more precious offerings in the divine service, or gave them up for Christ’s sake. Yet they did not win so much praise and commendation from the Lord as the women did. The end of the Lord’s life shows plainly how great their devotion to him had always been. For when the prince of the apostles himself denied the Lord, and the apostle beloved by him fled, and the other apostles were scattered, the women remained intrepid. No fear or despair could separate them from Christ, either in his Passion or his death. Thus the saying of the Apostle may seem to apply especially to them (Rom. 8:35): “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction, or distress?” When Matthew had said of himself and the others (26:56): “Now all his disciples abandoned him, and fled,” he also mentioned the perseverance of the women, who remained with the Crucified as long as it was permitted. “Many women,” he says (27:55), “stood watching from far of; they had followed Jesus from Galilee, to minister to him.” The same Evangelist describes them as remaining motionless by his sepulchre, saying (27:61): “But there were two who remained sitting there opposite the tomb, Mary Magdalen and the other Mary with her.” Thinking of them also, Mark says (15:40–41): “There were women there, who stood watching from afar off; among them were Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joseph, and Salome.” These women used to follow him and minister to him when he was in Galilee, and there were many others who had come up with him to Jerusalem. John also tells us (19:25–26) that he himself, who had fled earlier, stood by the Cross and stayed with the Crucified, but he mentions the perseverance of the women first, as if he had been inspired and called back by their example. “Meanwhile,” he says, “his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen, had taken their stand beside the cross of Jesus. And Jesus, seeing his mother there, and the disciple too, whom he loved, standing by . . .” But long before this, inspired by the Lord, Job had prophesied this constancy of the holy women and the defection of the disciples, when he said (19:20): “Skin clinging to bone, save where the lips cover my teeth, is all that is left of me.” The strength of the body is in the bone, which sustains and nourishes the flesh and skin. In the body of Christ, which is the Church, his bone is called the stable foundation of the Christian faith, or that fervor of charity of which it is sung (Cant. 8:7): “Love is a fire no waters avail to quench, no floods to drown.” Of this charity the Apostle also says (1 Cor. 13:7): “It sustains, believes, hopes, endures, to the last.” In the body, the flesh is the inner part, and the skin the outer. The apostles, then, who were intent on preaching the inner food of the soul, and the women who served the needs of the body, are compared to the flesh and the skin. When the flesh was consumed, the bones of Christ adhered to the skin, since when the apostles were scandalized by the Lord’s Passion and in despair at his death, the devotion of the holy women remained unshaken and in no way withdrew from the bone of Christ. In faith, hope, and charity, their devotion remained so constant that they would not be separated in mind or even in body from the dead. Men are naturally stronger than women, in both mind and body; the virile nature, therefore, is signified by the flesh, which is nearer the bone, and female infirmity is indicated by the skin. The apostles themselves, whose function it is to bite, rebuking the failings of others, are called the teeth of the Lord. For them, only the lips remained when, already in despair, they merely spoke of Christ rather than of what they might do for Christ. Among these, certainly, were the disciples to whom Christ appeared and whom he chided for their despair, as they were traveling to the town of Emmaus, and discussing with one another all that had happened. What, finally, did Peter and the other disciples offer but words alone, when the Passion of the Lord had come and the Lord himself had foretold that they would be scandalized because of his Passion? And Peter said (Matt. 26:33–35): “Though all else should lose courage over you, I will never lose mine . . . I will never disown you, though I must lay down my life with you.” And all the rest of his disciples said the like.” They said this, I say, but they did not do it. The first and greatest of the apostles had such constancy in words that he could say to the Lord (Luke 22:33): “I am ready to bear you company, though it were to prison or to death,” and in committing his Church specifically to Peter, the Lord had then said: “When, after a while, you have come back to me, it is for you to be the support of your brethren.” But at the words of a single maidservant, Peter was not ashamed to deny him. He did this not once only, but denied him a third time while he was still living. Similarly, while he was still alive, the apostles ran away from him, in a single moment, but after his death, the women were not separated from him in either mind or body. Among these, that blessed sinner, seeking him after his death and testifying to her Lord, says ( John 20:2): “They have carried the Lord away from the tomb,” and she also says (20:15): “If it is you, Sir, that have carried him off, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him away.” Indeed, the rams flee and the shepherds of the Lord’s flock, but the ewes remain unafraid. The Lord rebuked the first of these (the rams) as weak flesh, because in the very moment of his Passion they could not watch one hour with him. It was the women, spending a sleepless night weeping by his tomb, who deserved to be the first to see the risen Lord. In their fidelity after his death they showed him, not so much by words as by deeds, how much they had loved him in life. By the same solicitude they had shown over his Passion and death, they were the first to be made joyful by his Resurrection to life. When, according to John, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wound the Lord’s body in linen cloths with spices and buried him, Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of Joseph, as Mark says concerning the zeal of these women, saw where he was laid. Luke also mentions them, saying (23:55–56): “And the women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and saw the tomb, and how his body was buried; so they went back, and prepared spices and ointment, evidently regarding the spices of Nicodemus as not sufficient unless they added their own. On the Sabbath they rested, according to the commandment.” But, as Mark says (15:1), when the Sabbath was over, very early in the morning, on the day of the Resurrection itself, Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, came to the tomb. Now that I have demonstrated the devotion of these women, let me proceed to show the honor they merited. First of all, they were comforted by the angelic vision concerning the Lord’s Resurrection, now accomplished, and then they were the first to see and touch the Lord himself. Mary Magdalen, who was more faithful than the others, was the very first. After the angelic vision she and the others with her, as is written (Matt. 28:8–10): left the tomb, in fear and great rejoicing, and ran to tell the news to his disciples. And while they were on their way, all at once Jesus met them and said, ‘All hail.’ With that they came near to him, and clung to his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them . . . ‘go and give word to my brethren to remove into Galilee; they shall see me there.’ Luke also says (24:l0): “It was Mary Magdalen, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, who told the apostles this.” Nor does Mark conceal the fact that it was these women who were first sent by the angel to tell his disciples, for he writes that the angel said to the women (16:6–7): “He has risen again, he is not here . . . Go and tell Peter and the rest of his disciples that he is going before you into Galilee.” When the Lord himself appeared to Mary Magdalen, he said ( John 20:17): “Return to my brethren, and tell them this, I am going up to him who is my Father.” From these statements, we gather that these holy women were constituted, so to speak, apostles over the apostles, since they were sent to the apostles either by the Lord or by angels to announce the supreme joy of the Resurrection for which all were waiting, so that from them the apostles might first learn what they were later to preach to the whole world. After the Resurrection, when the Lord met these women, the Evangelist relates that they were greeted by him, so that by meeting and greeting them, he might show how concerned he was for them and how grateful to them. For it is not said that he greeted others with that special form of words, “All hail”; indeed, he had already forbidden his disciples to use that salutation when he said to them (Luke 10:4): “Salute no man by the way.” This is as though he wished from that time onward to reserve for devout women this privilege, which in his own person he had displayed to them after he had assumed the glory of immortality. When the Acts of the Apostles relate that, immediately after the Lord’s Ascension, the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, and carefully describe the piety of that holy community, they do not fail to mention the perseverance in devotion of the holy women, where it is said (1:14): “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus.” But I shall now say no more about the Jewish women who were first converted to the faith while the Lord was still living and preaching in the flesh, and who initiated the form of this religious life. Now let us consider the widows of the Greeks, who were later received by the apostles, and the care and concern with which these widows were treated by the apostles, who appointed that most glorious standard-bearer of the Christian army, Stephen the first martyr, to serve them. It is written in the Acts of the Apostles (6:1–6): At that time, as the number of the disciples increased, complaints were brought against those who spoke Hebrew by those who spoke Greek; their widows, they said, were neglected in the daily administration of relief. So the twelve called together the general body of the disciples, and said, ‘It is too much that we should have to forgo preaching God’s word, and bestow our care upon tables. Come then, brethren, you must find among you seven men who are well spoken of, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, for us to put in charge of this business, while we devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of preaching.’ This advice found favor with all the assembly and they chose Stephen, a man who was full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, who was a proselyte from Antioch. These were presented to the apostles, who laid their hands on them with prayer. So the continence of Stephen was highly commended because he was appointed to the ministry and service of holy women. How excellent his service was and how acceptable to both the Lord and the apostles, they themselves testified by their prayers and by the laying on of hands, as if charging those whom they appointed for this service to act faithfully. By their blessing and their prayer, the women helped them as much as they could. Paul also claims this kind of service for himself, for the carrying out of his apostolate, when he says (1 Cor. 9:5): “Have we not the right to travel about with a woman who is a sister, as the other apostles do?” This is as if he were to say plainly: “Are we not permitted to have groups of holy women, and to take them about with us in our preaching, as the other apostles have been allowed to do, so that from their own substance, these women might provide them with things necessary for their preaching?” On this subject Augustine says in his book, On the Work of Monks: “For this reason, faithful women who possessed earthly substance went with them and ministered to them from their substance, so that they might not lack any of those things that pertain to the needs of this life.” He also says: If anyone doubts that the apostles permitted women of holy life to travel about with them wherever they preached the Gospel . . . let them hear the Gospel and know that they did this, following the example of the Lord himself . . . For it is written in the Gospel (Luke 8:1–4): ‘Then followed a time in which he went on journeying from one city or village to another, preaching and spreading the good news of God’s kingdom. With him were the twelve apostles, and certain women, whom he had freed from evil spirits and from sicknesses, Mary who is called Magdalen . . . and Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who ministered to him with the means they had . . .’ From this it is evident that, when the Lord went out preaching, his bodily needs were supplied by the women’s services and that they, like the apostles, were joined to him as inseparable companions. But in time, when the piety of this way of life had increased in women as well as in men, in the very beginning of the infant Church, women, like men, had monasteries as dwelling-places. Among other subjects, the Ecclesiastical History records how magnificently Philo, a most learned Jew, praised the church of Alexandria under Mark, not only in speech but in writing. For he said: “In many parts of the world there are men of this kind.” And he added: “In various places there are houses dedicated to prayer; such a house is called semaion or monastery.” He further reported: “They not only know the hymns of the learned ancients but also compose new hymns to God, chanting them in every tone and meter with a very good and sweet harmony.” To omit much else concerning abstinence and the offices of divine worship, the History adds: But with the men we have mentioned, there were also women, among whom are many virgins who are already very old and who have preserved the integrity and chastity of the body not from any necessity, but from devotion. They strive to consecrate themselves to the study of wisdom in both soul and body, thinking it unworthy to yield up to lust the vessel prepared for the reception of wisdom, and to bring to bed of a mortal birth those bodies of which a sacrosanct and immortal cohabitation with the Divine Word is required, and which may leave a posterity in no way subject to mortal corruption. In the same passage it is said of Philo: “He writes also concerning their communities that men and women are assembled separately in the same places and they keep vigils as is the custom among us.” There is also the statement in praise of Christian philosophy, that is, the monastic privilege, which, according to the Tripartite History, was assumed by women no less than men. For it is written in the eleventh chapter of the first book: The founder of this most elegant philosophy was, some say, Elias the prophet or John the Baptist. Philo the Pythagorean relates that in his time the best of the Hebrews, coming from all parts, used to philosophize in a field on a hill by the Lake Maria. He mentions their dwelling-place and their food and their way of life, such as we now see existing among the Egyptian monks. He writes that . . . until sunset, they did not taste food . . . that they always abstained from wine and from things containing blood, that their food was bread and salt and hyssop, and their drink was water. Women lived among them, virgins of more mature years who abstained from marriage of their own free will for love of philosophy. On this subject, too, is that passage of Jerome in his book, On Illustrious Men, praising Mark and his church: The first to announce Christ in Alexandria, he founded a church of such great learning and continence of life as to compel all followers of Christ to his example. Then Philo, the most learned of the Jews, seeing that the first church of Alexandria was still Judaizing, wrote in praise of his own people a book on their conversion and, just as Luke tells us that in Jerusalem the faithful had everything in common, Philo commemorates what he saw done at Alexandria under the teaching of Mark. Jerome also writes in his eleventh chapter: Philo the Jew, an Alexandrian by birth, who belonged to a family of priests, is included by us among ecclesiastical writers because in writing a book concerning the first church of Mark the Evangelist in Alexandria, he praises our people, recording their life not only there but in many provinces, and calling their dwelling-places monasteries. From this it appears that in the beginning the Church of the believers in Christ followed the way of life that monks now imitate, and they held that nothing belonged to anyone as his property, that none among them was rich and none poor, that their inheritances were divided among the needy, and that they devoted themselves to prayer and psalms, to learning and continence, as Luke also reports of the first Christians in Jerusalem (Acts 4:37). If we turn to the old histories, we shall find there that women were not separated from men in those things which pertain to God, or to any excellence in religion. Women as well as men, according to the sacred histories, not only sang divine hymns, but composed them. Indeed, both men and women sang the first hymn, celebrating the liberation of the children of Israel; from this, they at once acquired authority for celebrating the divine offices in the Church. For it is written (Exod. 15:20): “Hereupon Mary [Miriam] the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, went out with a tambour in her hand, and all the womenfolk followed her with tambour and with dances, and took up from her the refrain, ‘A psalm for the Lord, so great is he and so glorious.’” The prophet Moses is not mentioned there, and it is not said that he sang as Mary did, nor are the men reported to have had tambours or dances like the women. So when Mary, answering them, is called a prophet, it seems that it was not so much in chanting or reciting as in prophesy that she uttered that song. Moreover, when she is described as answering the others, this shows how orderly and harmonious their chant was. But the fact that they sang not with the voice alone, but with tambours and dance, suggests their very great devotion and also expresses mystically the special form of song in monastic communities. The Psalmist also urges us to this form of song when he says (Ps. 150:4): “Praise him with the tambour and the dance,” that is, in mortification of the flesh and in that concord of charity of which it is written (Acts 4:32): “There was one heart and soul in all the company of believers.” There is no lack of mystery in what they are reported to have done in their singing, in which are symbolized the joys of the contemplative soul, which in attaching itself to heavenly things deserts, as it were, the cities of its earthly life, and out of the secret delights of its contemplation, composes a spiritual hymn to the Lord with the greatest exultation. There are also the hymns of Deborah and Anna and the widow Judith, as in the Gospel there is the hymn of Mary, the mother of the Lord. When Anna, for example, offered her infant son Samuel in the tabernacle of the Lord, she provided authority for the taking of children into monasteries. So Isidore [of Seville] says to the monks assembled in the Honorian community: Whoever has been placed by his own parents in a monastery, let him know that he is to remain there forever. For Anna offered to God her son Samuel, who remained also in the service of the Temple to which he had been dedicated by his mother, and he served there where he had been placed. It is evident also that the daughters of Aaron as well as their brothers belonged to the sanctuary and the hereditary office of Levi. For this reason the Lord made provision for their support, as it is written in the Book of Numbers (18:19), where he said to Aaron: “All the sanctuary dues which the sons of Israel offer I give to you and to your sons and daughters by a perpetual deed of gift.” So it appears that the religious life of women was not separated from the life of clerics and it is clear that these women were joined with the men in name, since we speak of deaconesses as well as deacons, as if in each of them we recognize the tribe of Levi and female Levites. We have in the same book that solemn vow and consecration of the Nazirites of the Lord, we established for men and women alike when the Lord himself said to Moses (Numbers 6:2–4): This message, too, the Lord gave to Moses for the sons of Israel. Man or woman that would be set apart for the Lord by taking the Nazirite vow must abstain from wine, and from all strong drink. They must not drink vinegar made from wine or from any such liquor, nor any draught that is strained from the grape; they must not eat grapes, whether fresh or dried. No fruit of the vine, grape or raisin, must pass their lips while the days of their consecration last. Indeed, I believe that those women who gathered at the door of the tabernacle were of this religious way of life. From their mirrors, Moses made the washing- basin in which Aaron and his sons were to wash themselves, as it is written (Exod. 38:8): “Then he made a washing-basin and a stand for it, out of bronze from the mirrors of the women who used to keep watch at the door of the tabernacle.” The fervor of their devotion is carefully described, for when the tabernacle was closed, they stayed by its door and kept the holy vigils, passing the night in prayer and not interrupting the divine worship even while the men slept. But the fact that the tabernacle was closed to them fittingly indicates the life of penitents, who are separated from others in order to submit themselves to the more severe mortifications of penance. This is the special image of the monastic calling, whose discipline is said to be nothing but a milder form of penance. The tabernacle, at whose door they gathered, is to be understood mystically as the tabernacle of which the Apostle writes to the Hebrews (13:10): “We have an altar of our own, and it is not those who carry out the worship of the tabernacle that are qualified to eat its sacrifices.” This is to say that those are not worthy to share in this worship who devote themselves to the pleasures of the body, in which they serve here below as in a camp. But the door of the tabernacle is the end of this present life, when the soul departs from the body and enters into the life to come. At this door, those who assemble are anxious about leaving this life and entering upon the future life. By doing penance they so order their departure from this life that they may be worthy of entering the next. The Psalmist’s prayer touches on this daily entering and leaving of the holy Church (Ps. 120:8): “The Lord will protect your coming in and your going out.” For at one and the same time he protects our coming in and our going out, when on our departure from here, already purified by penance, he immediately takes us in there. The Psalmist rightly mentioned the entering there before the departure from mortal life, paying attention not to the order but to the dignity, since this departure from mortal life is in pain, but the entrance to eternal life is the supreme joy. The mirrors of the women are the external works by which the beauty or ugliness of the soul is judged, as the condition of the human face is discerned in a material looking-glass. From these mirrors is made the washing-basin in which Aaron and his sons may wash themselves, when the works of holy women and the very great devotion to God of the frail sex vigorously rebuke the negligence of bishops and priests, and move them especially to tears of compunction. If they care for these women as they should, the good works of the women will prepare for the sins of bishops and priests a pardon by which they may be absolved. Indeed, St. Gregory made himself a washing-basin of compunction from these mirrors when he marveled at the virtue of holy women and at the victory of the weak sex in martyrdom, asking with regret: What will bearded men say, when delicate girls bear such things for Christ, and the weak sex triumphs in so great a struggle that frequently we know they have won the twofold crown of virginity and martyrdom? I have no doubt that the blessed Anna truly belonged among these women of whom it has been said, gathered at the door of the tabernacle and, as Nazirites of the Lord, had already consecrated their widowhood to him. Together with Simeon, she was found worthy of receiving the special Nazirite of the Lord, Jesus Christ, in the Temple and, being seized more completely by the prophetic spirit, she recognized him by the Holy Spirit at the same instant as Simeon did, and she revealed his presence and announced it publicly. Speaking in praise of her, the Evangelist says (Luke 2:36): There was besides a prophetess named Anna, daughter to one Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser (a woman greatly advanced in age, since she had lived with a husband for seven years after her maidenhood, and had now been eighty-four years a widow) who abode continually in the Temple night and day, serving God with fasting and prayer. She too, at that very hour, came near to give God thanks, and spoke of the child to all that patiently waited for the deliverance of Israel. Note each detail of what is said here and consider how zealously the Evangelist praised this woman and how highly he extolled her excellence. He carefully described the grace she enjoyed for so long a time, and her father, and her tribe, and the seven years during which she lived with her husband. He also described the long period of holy widowhood she spent in devotion to the Lord, and her assiduous service in the Temple. He mentioned as well her constancy in fasting and prayers, her confession of praise, the thanks she gave to the Lord, and her public preaching of the promise and birth of the Saviour. The Evangelist had previously praised Simeon, it is true, but for his righteousness, not for his prophecy, and he does not record that Simeon possessed so great a virtue of continence or abstinence, or such solicitude for divine worship. Nor did he add anything about his preaching to others. Sharing also in this life of religious devotion are those true widows of whom the Apostle says when he writes to Timothy (1, 5:3, 5): “Give widows their due, if that name really belongs to them. The woman who is indeed a widow, bereft of all help, will put her trust in God, and spend her time, night and day, upon prayers and petitions . . . Warn them of this, too, or they will bring themselves into disrepute.” He adds (1, 5:16): “If a believer has any widows dependent on him, he should undertake their support, leaving the church free to support the widows who are really destitute.” He calls those true widows who have not dishonored their widowhood by a second marriage, or who, persevering from devotion rather than necessity, have dedicated themselves to the Lord. He calls those desolate who renounce all things in such a way as not to keep any earthly solace for themselves, or who have no one to take care of them. He commands, indeed, that these women should be honored, and considers that they should be supported at the expense of the Church, as if from the property of Christ, their spouse. He expressly indicates those among them who are to be elected to the ministry of the diaconate, saying (1 Tim. 5:9–11): If a woman is to be put on the list of widows, she must have reached at least the age of sixty, and have been faithful to one husband. She must have a name for acts of charity; has she brought up children? Has she been hospitable? Has she washed the feet of the saints? Has she helped those who were in affliction? Has she attached herself to every charitable cause? Have nothing to do with younger widows. In developing this last point, St. Jerome says: With respect to the office of the diaconate, avoid giving a bad example rather than a good one. If, that is, the younger widows are chosen for this office, who are more subject to temptation and more frivolous by nature, and not being made wise by the experience of a long life, they may offer a bad example to the very persons to whom they should set a good one. The Apostle also speaks out plainly against this bad example in younger widows, of which he had already learned from experience, and he prescribes a remedy for it. After first saying, “Have nothing to do with younger widows,” he immediately adds the reason for this warning (1 Tim. 5:11–16): They will live at their ease at Christ’s expense, and then be in favor of marrying again, thus becoming guilty of breaking the promise they have made. Meanwhile they learn habits of idleness as they go from house to house; nor are they merely idle, they gossip and interfere, and say what they have no right to say. So I would have the younger women marry and bear children and have households to manage; then they will give enmity no handle for speaking ill of us. Already there are some who have turned aside, to follow Satan. Inspired by the Apostle’s wise precaution regarding the election of deaconesses, St. Gregory writes to Maximus, bishop of Syracuse: “We most vehemently forbid the selection of youthful abbesses. Therefore, my brother, you should allow no bishop to give the veil to anyone but a virgin of sixty years, whose life and morals have been tested.” Those whom we now call “abbesses” were called “deaconesses” in ancient times, that is, “ministers” rather than “mothers.” For “deacon” means “minister,” and it was thought that “deaconesses” should receive their name from their ministry rather than their rank, according to what the Lord established by his examples and also by his words, when he said (Matt. 23:11): “Among you the greatest of all is to be the servant of all.” Also (Luke 22:27): “Tell me, which is the greater, the man who sits at table, or the man who serves him? Surely the man who sits at table; yet I am here among you as your servant.” He says elsewhere (Matt. 20:28): “So it is that the Son of Man did not come to have service done him; he came to serve others.” On the Lord’s authority, Jerome even dared to attack the very name of ‘abbot,’ on which he knew that many now prided themselves. Explaining that passage in the epistle to the Galatians in which it is written: Crying out in us, Abba, Father, ‘he says, “Abba” is a Hebrew word meaning the same as “Father.” And since “Abba” means “Father” in the Hebrew and Syriac languages and the Lord says in the Gospel that no man is to be called “Father” except God, I do not know by what license we in the monasteries either call others by this name or allow ourselves to be called. Certainly, he who commanded this had said that we must not swear; if we do not swear, let us not call any man “Father.” If we interpret the word “Father” in a different fashion, we shall be forced also to think differently about swearing. It is certain that one of these deaconesses was that Phoebe of whom the Apostle said, when he commended her highly to the Romans and petitioned them in her behalf (Rom. l6:2): I commend our sister Phoebe to you; she has devoted her services to the church at Cenchrae. Make her welcome in the Lord as saints should, and help her in any business where she needs your help; she had been a good friend to many, myself among them. Explaining this passage, both Cassiodorus and Claudius declare that she was a deaconess of that church. Cassiodorus says: It means that she was a deaconess of the Mother Church, following a practice of apprenticeship or, so to speak, training in arms, which is still followed in the Greek regions to this day; and the Church does not deny these deaconesses the power of baptizing. Claudius says that “this passage teaches on apostolic authority that women also may be ordained in the service of the Church. Phoebe, who was entrusted with this office in the church at Cenchrae, is highly praised and commended by the Apostle.” In his letter to Timothy, St. Paul includes these women among the deacons themselves and gives them the same rule of life. When he is describing the order and ranks of ecclesiastical offices and has descended from bishop to deacon, he says (1 Tim. 3:8–13): Deacons, in the same way, must be men of decent behavior, not given to deep drinking or to money-getting, keeping true, in all sincerity of conscience, to the faith that has been revealed. These, in their turn, must first undergo probation, and only be allowed to serve as deacons if no charge is brought against them. The womenfolk, too, should be modest, not fond of slanderous talk; they must be sober, and in every way worthy of trust. The deacon must be faithful to one wife, good at looking after his own family and household. Those who have served well in the diaconate will secure for themselves a sure footing, and great boldness in proclaiming that faith which is founded on Christ Jesus. As he says first regarding deacons, they are “men of their word”; he says of deaconesses, they are “not fond of slanderous talk.” As he says of deacons, “they are not given to deep drinking,” he says that deaconesses should be “sober.” But all the rest that follows regarding deacons, he sums up with respect to deaconesses in these words, “they are in every way worthy of trust.” As he forbids bishops and deacons to marry twice, he has also established, as I have said before, that deaconesses shall not marry more than once (1 Tim. 5:9–11): If a woman is to be put on the list of widows, she must have reached, at least, the age of sixty, and have been faithful to one husband. She must have a name for acts of charity; has she brought up children? Has she been hospitable? Has she washed the feet of the saints? Has she helped those who were in affliction? Has she attached herself to every charitable cause? Have nothing to do with younger widows. It is easy to see how much more careful the Apostle was in this description or instruction of deaconesses than in the regulations for both bishops and deacons. Nowhere does he say of deacons what he says of deaconesses: “She must have a name for acts of charity,” or “has she been hospitable?” Nor does he say concerning bishops and deacons what he adds regarding the deaconess, “Has she washed the feet of the saints?” He says of bishops and deacons, “if no charge is brought against them.” But he not only commands that the women shall be blameless, but says that they shall have attached themselves to every good cause. When he says they must have reached, at least, the age of sixty, he also provides carefully for their maturity of age. Thus they may have authority in all things and reverence may be paid not only to their lives but also to their great age. On this account, although the Lord loved John most dearly, he nevertheless set Peter, who was the elder, over him as well as the others. All men are less displeased when an older, rather than a younger, man is set over them and we more willingly obey an older person, to whom not only life but also nature and the order of time have given priority. For this reason, Jerome says in the first book of his Against Jovinian, when he is discussing the prelacy of Peter: One is chosen, so that with an established head all occasion for schism may be removed. But why was John not chosen? Deference was paid to age, because Peter was the elder, in order that one who was still a youth and almost a boy, should not be preferred to men of more advanced age. And thus the Good Master, who was obliged to remove all occasion for quarreling among the disciples, might not seem to supply a reason for jealousy of the young man whom he loved. This matter was given careful consideration by that abbot who, it is written in the Lives of the Fathers, took away the office of prior from a younger monk who had come earlier to the monastic life and gave it to an older one, who was his brother, for the sole reason that he was the elder in years. He was afraid that this blood brother might resent the placing of a younger man over him. He recalled that the apostles themselves had become angry at two of their number when their mother interceded with Christ and seemed to obtain some privilege, especially since one of these two was younger than the other apostles—namely, John himself, whom I have just mentioned. It was not only in regulating the life of deaconesses that the Apostle exercised such watchful care; it is clear in general how zealous he was concerning widows of holy life, in order to remove all occasion for temptation. After he had said (1 Tim. 5:3–4): “Give widows their due, if that name really belongs to them” he immediately added: “If a widowed woman is left with children or grandchildren, she must be warned that her own flesh and blood has the first claim on her piety.” Somewhat further on he says (5:8): “The man who makes no provision for those nearest him, above all his own family, has contradicted the teaching of the faith, and indeed does worse than the unbelievers do.” In these words he provides at one and the same time for the needs of humanity and those of the religious life. Thus poor orphans may not be abandoned on the pretext of religion, and earthly compassion for the needy may not disturb the widow’s holy way of life and force her to look backward, and sometimes even lead her to sacrilege and to defrauding the community by providing something for her own family. The need for this advice is clear, in order that, before they pass over to true widowhood and devote themselves entirely to the divine service, those who are involved in the care of households may provide for their children and in this way recompense their own parents, with whose care they themselves were reared. To encourage still further the religious life of widows, the Apostle also commands that they continue night and day in supplications and prayers. Very much concerned for their needs, he says (1 Tim. 5:16): “If a believer has any widows depending on him, he should undertake their support, leaving the church free to support the widows who are really destitute.” This is as though he were to say that if there is any widow with relatives who are able to provide for her needs from their own resources, they should provide for her in this way, so that the public funds of the Church may suffice to support the rest. This statement shows clearly that those who refuse to support the widows belonging to them are to be compelled by apostolic authority to discharge the debt. The Apostle is providing not only for the needs of widows but also for their honor when he says (1 Tim. 5:16): “Give widows their due if that name really belongs to them.” Among these widows, in my opinion, were both the woman whom Paul himself calls mother and the other whom John the Evangelist calls his lady, out of reverence for their holy life. Writing to the Romans (16:13), St. Paul says: “My greetings to Rufus, a chosen servant of the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me.” And in his second epistle, John says (2 John 1:1): “I, the presbyter, send greeting to that sovereign lady whom God has chosen, and to those children of hers.” Asking also that he may be loved by her, he adds later (2 John 1:5): “And now, sovereign lady, I have a request to make of you . . . let us all love one another.” Relying on his authority, when Jerome writes to Eustochium, the virgin who followed your way of life, he is not ashamed to call her “lady.” Indeed, he immediately explains why he should do so, when he says: “For this reason, I write ‘my lady Eustochium.’ I must call her ‘my lady’ who is the bride of my Lord.” Later in the same letter, placing the prerogative of this holy calling above every glory of earthly happiness, he says: I do not wish you to consort with matrons, I do not wish you to enter the houses of noblemen, and see frequently what you rejected when you wished to be a virgin . . . If the ambitious ladies of the court gather around the emperor’s wife, why should you do your husband an injury? Why should you, the bride of God, hasten to the wife of a man? Learn holy pride in this matter; know that you are better than they. Writing to a virgin dedicated to God concerning virgins thus consecrated to him, Jerome also begins by describing the blessedness they enjoy in heaven, and the dignity on earth: The great blessedness that holy virginity shall enjoy in heaven we are taught by the testimony of the Scriptures as well as by the custom of the Church. From these we learn that there is a special merit in those who are consecrated physically. Each member of the multitude of the faithful receives equal gifts of grace and all rejoice in the same benefits of the sacraments. But virgins have a special privilege, greater than the others, because through the merits of their intention they are chosen by the Holy Spirit from the holy and spotless flock of the Church as holier and pure victims, and offered by the high priest on the altar of God . . . . Virginity, therefore, possesses something that the others do not have, since it obtains a special grace and rejoices, if I may say so, in its own privilege of consecration. For the consecration of virgins, except in imminent danger of death, may not be celebrated at any other times than Epiphany, the White Sunday of Easter, and the Nativities of the apostles. Nor are virgins or the veils that are to be laid on their precious heads to be blessed by anyone but the high priest, that is, the bishop. On the other hand, although monks are bound by the same vows and belong to the same order and to a worthier sex, they are permitted, even if they are also virgins, to receive the blessing on any day whatsoever and from the abbot, both for themselves and for their garments, that is, their cowls. Priests and other clerics of the lower ranks can always be consecrated on any Sunday. But since the consecration of virgins is more precious, it is also rarer and it is reserved for the joyfulness of the principal feasts. In their marvelous virtue the whole Church rejoices, as the Psalmist foretold when he said (Ps. 44:15–16): “The maidens of her court follow her into your presence, all rejoicing, all triumphant, as they enter the king’s palace!.” Matthew, who was at once an apostle and an evangelist, is said to have composed or dictated the ritual of this consecration, as we read in his Acts, where it is recorded with reference to his passion that he fell as a martyr for their consecration, or in defense of the virginal calling. But the apostles have not left us in writing any blessing for the consecration of clerics or monks. Only the calling of nuns receives its name from the word “sanctity,” since they have been called “sanctimoniales,” from the word “sanctimony,” that is, “sanctity.” Just as women are the weaker sex, so their virtue is more pleasing to God and more perfect, according to the Lord himself when, encouraging the apostles in their weakness to strive for the crown, he says (2 Cor. 12:9): “My grace is enough for you; my strength finds its full scope in your weakness.” Similarly, when he spoke through the Apostle of the members of his body, which is the Church, as though he would especially praise the honor of such weak members, he added in the first epistle to the Corinthians (12:22–25): On the contrary, it is those parts of our body which seem most ignoble that are necessary to it; what seems base in our bodies, we surround with a special honor, treating with special seemliness that which is unseemly in us, whereas that which is seemly in us has no need of it. Thus God has established a harmony in the body, giving special honor to that which needed it most. There was to be no want of unity in the body; all the different parts of it were to make each other’s welfare their common care. But who would say that the dispensation of the divine grace was ever so completely fulfilled as in the very weakness of the female sex, which both sin and nature had made contemptible? If you consider the various states of life among women, not only virgins and widows or wives but also the harlots and their abominations, you will see that the grace of Christ has been more abundant in women, so that, according to the words of the Lord and the apostle (Matt. 20:16): “They shall be first who were last, and they shall be last who were first,” and (Rom. 5:20): “As our fault was amplified, grace has been more amply bestowed than ever.” If we look for the benefits of this divine grace and the honors shown to women from the beginning of the world, we shall find at once that the creation of woman was of greater dignity, since she was created in Paradise and man was created outside. So women are urged to pay special attention to the fact that Paradise is their native land. It is, therefore, so much more fitting for them to follow the celibate life of Paradise. For this reason, Ambrose says in his book On Paradise: And God took the man whom he had already made and placed him in Paradise . . . You see how he who already existed was taken . . . and God placed him in Paradise . . . Note that the man was made outside Paradise, and the woman inside. Man, who was created in the inferior place, is considered better and she who was made in the better place is regarded as inferior. Moreover, in Mary, the Lord also first restored Eve, the root of all evil, before he restored Adam in Christ. As sin began with women, so does grace, and the holy privilege of virginity has flowered again. Anna and Mary offered to widows and virgins a model of their holy calling before examples of the monastic way of life were set before men by John and the apostles. But if after Eve, we consider the virtue of Deborah, Judith, and Esther, we shall surely be not a little ashamed of the virile sex. For Deborah, a judge of the Lord’s people, went into battle after the men failed; when their enemies had been overthrown and the Lord’s people set free, she celebrated the greatest of victories ( Judg. 4:4J .). Unarmed, and accompanied only by her maidservant, Judith approached a terrible army and cutting off the head of Holofernes with his own sword, by herself she destroyed all her enemies and set free a people in despair ( Judith 8J .). At the secret suggestion of the Spirit, Esther joined herself in marriage with the Gentile king, against the decree of the Law, and forestalling the plot of the most wicked Haman and the cruel edict of the king, in less than a moment she reversed the decree already established by the royal will (Esther 2:5J .). It is considered a miracle of courage that David attacked Goliath with a sling and a stone, and vanquished him. But the widow Judith advanced into battle against the hostile army without sling or stone, with no arms whatsoever (Judith 10). By her word alone, Esther set her people free and when the decree was turned against her enemies, they rushed into the trap that they had set. Among the Jews the memory of this famous deed has won the tribute of a solemn festival every year, which has never been achieved by any deeds of men, however splendid. Who does not marvel at the incomparable constancy of the mother of seven sons? When they were captured, together with their mother, as the history of the Maccabees tells us, the wicked King Antiochus tried in vain to force them to eat the flesh of swine contrary to the Law. This mother, forgetting her own nature and disregarding human affection, with no one but the Lord before her eyes, triumphed in as many martyrdoms as the number of sons she sent before her to the crown by her holy exhortations, and she consummated her sacrifice with her own martyrdom (2 Mach. 7). If we search through the whole of the Old Testament, what can we find to compare with the constancy of this woman? Satan, after exhausting his forceful temptations against the holy Job, and knowing the weakness of human nature in the face of death, said (Job 2:4): “Skin must suffer before skin grieves. Nothing a man owns, but he will part with it to keep his skin whole.” By nature we are all so fearful of the straits of dea th that we often sacrifice one member in defense of another and will undergo any evil in order to preserve our lives. But this woman suffered the loss not only of everything she possessed, but of her own life and her sons’ lives, rather than commit a single offense against the Law. And what, I ask you, was this transgression to which she was being forced? Was she being compelled to renounce God or to offer incense to idols? No, all that was demanded of them was that they eat meat forbidden them by the Law. Oh, brothers and fellow-monks who, contrary to the prescription of the Rule, and the vows you have sworn, yearn so shamelessly every day for meat, what do you have to say to the constancy of this woman? Are you so shameless that you do not blush to hear these things, that you are not confounded by them? You know, my brothers, what the Lord said, reproaching the unbelievers, concerning the queen of the south (Matt. 12:42): “The queen of the south will rise up with this generation of the day of judgment, and will leave it without excuse.” But the constancy of this woman is a much greater accusation against you, because she did far more than you have done, though by your vows you are bound more strictly to the religious life. Indeed, her virtue, which was proved in so great a contest, has deserved to obtain in the Church the privilege of having her martyrdom celebrated by solemn lessons and a Mass. This is a privilege that has not been granted to any other saints of the Old Testament, that is, those whose death preceded the coming of the Lord, although in the same history of the Machabees, the venerable old man, Eleazar, one of the chiefs of the Scribes, is said to have been crowned with martyrdom earlier and for the same reason. But since, as I have said, the female sex is naturally weaker, its virtue is more pleasing to God and worthier of honor. So that martyrdom of Eleazar, in which no woman shared, has not merited any remembrances in our feasts, as if it were considered no great matter that the stronger sex should endure more manfully. For this reason the Scripture burst out more eloquently in praise of this woman, saying (2 Mach. 7:20–21): “And here was the greatest marvel of all, by honest folk ever to be kept in mind, that the mother of seven children should be content to lose them all in one day, for the hope she had in God’s mercy. What generosity of mind was this, that could temper her womanly feelings with a man’s thoughts!” Who would not consider the daughter of Jephthah uniquely deserving of praise among virgins (see Judg. 11:30–40)? In order that her father should not be held to account for his rash vow and the promised victim cheated of the benfits of divine grace, she herself urged him, after his victory, to cut her throat. What, I ask you, would she have done in the struggle of the martyrs, if by chance she had been forced by unbelievers to become an apostate by denying Christ? If she had been questioned concerning Christ, would she have said with Peter, who was already prince of the apostles (Luke 22:57): “I do not know him?” After her father had sent her away in freedom for two months, she returned at the end of that time to be killed. Willingly she offers herself to death, provoking it rather than fearing it. Her father’s foolish vow is punished and in great love for the truth, she redeems her father’s life. Would she not have abhorred in herself the perjury that in her father she could not endure? How great was the devotion of this virgin to her earthly, as well as to her heavenly father! She was determined, by her death, to free the one from perjury and at the same time to preserve for the other what had been promised to him. So the courageous spirit of this girl deservedly obtained the special privilege that every year the daughters of Israel gather together to celebrate the obsequies of this virgin with solemn hymns and commemorate her suffering with pious laments. Not to mention other examples, what has been so necessary to our redemption and to the salvation of the whole world as the female sex, which gave birth for us to the Savior himself? This unique honor was used as an argument to counter the amazement of St. Hilarion by the woman who first dared to intrude on his privacy. For she said: “Why do you avert your eyes? Why do you turn away from my appeal? Do not look upon me as a woman, but as one who is wretched. This sex gave birth to the Savior!” What glory can be compared to that which this sex won in the mother of the Lord? If he had wished to do so, our Redeemer could have assumed his body from a man, as he willed to form the first woman from the body of a man. But he turned this singular favor of his humility to the honor of the weaker sex. He could also have been born of another and worthier part of the woman’s body than are other men, who are born of that same most lowly part in which they are conceived. But to the incomparable honor of the weaker body, he consecrated its genitals far more by his birth than he had dignified those of men by his circumcision. Saying nothing further at the moment about the singular honor of virgins, I must turn my attention, as I planned, to other women. Consider, then, how much grace the coming of Christ bestowed on Elizabeth the wife and Anna the widow. Zachary, the husband of Elizabeth and a great priest of the Lord, was still silent in the diffidence of unbelief, while Elizabeth herself, when Mary came and greeted her, was filled at once with the Holy Spirit. She felt the child leap in her own womb and, showing herself to be more than a prophet, she was the first to foretell that Mary had also conceived. For she immediately announced to the virgin that she had conceived, and urged the Lord’s mother herself to magnify (glory in) him for this (as in “my soul doth magnify the Lord”) (Luke 1:46–55). The gift of prophecy is thus, evidently, more excellently fulfilled in Elizabeth, who at once recognized the Son of God at his conception, than in John, who only proclaimed him a long time after his birth. So as I have called Mary Magdalen the apostle over the apostles, I do not hesitate to call Elizabeth the prophet over the prophets, and also that holy widow Anna, of whom I have written more fully above. But if we allow the gift of prophecy to the Gentiles also, let the Sibyl appear in our midst and testify to those things that were revealed to her concerning Christ. If we compare all the prophets with her, even Isaiah himself—who, as Jerome says, is to be called not so much a prophet as an evangelist—we shall see that in this gift, too, women are far superior to men. Invoking her testimony against D ve heresies, Augustine says of the Sibyl: Let us hear what the Sibyl, their prophetess, has to say about this. ‘The Lord,’ she says, ‘has given another to be worshipped by men of faith.’ She also says, ‘Know that he is thy Lord, the Son of God.’ In another place, she calls the Son of God Symbolum, that is, ‘Counselor,’ or ‘Counsel.’ And the prophetess says, ‘They shall call him the “Admirable One,” the “Counselor.” In the eighteenth book of The City of God, Augustine also says of the Sybil: Some maintain that at that time the Erythrean Sibyl made this prophecy . . . while others say it was the Sibyl of Cumae . . . . And there are twenty-seven books of her prophecy, which . . . as some have interpreted them in Latin verses . . . contain the following:

In token of judgment, the earth shall sweat. From heaven a king shall come, and he shall be Throughout the ages present in the flesh, And he will judge the world . . . And he will judge the world . . .

When the first letters of these verses are joined together in Greek, they form the following: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour . . .” Lactantius also quotes certain prophecies of the Sibyl concerning Christ: Afterwards (she says) he will fall into the hands of unbelievers. They will strike God with their unclean hands and they will spit forth envenomed spittle from their impure mouths; but he will offer his holy back meekly to their blows and he will receive them silently, so that none may find out the words, or whence it comes, that he will speak in hell. And he shall be crowned with thorns. For food they will give him gall and vinegar to quench his thirst; this is the table which, in their hospitality, they will set for him. For, foolish people, you have not recognized your God, playing in the minds of mortals, but you have crowned him with thorns, you have mixed gall for him. The veil of the Temple shall be rent and at mid-day there shall be night for three hours; and he shall die and for three days he shall be fallen asleep, and then, returning from hell, he shall come to the light . . . to make manifest the beginning of the Resurrection. Surely, if I am not mistaken, this Sibylline prophecy had been heard and well noted by the greatest of our poets, Virgil. In his fourth Eclogue he foretold the miraculous birth that was shortly to occur under Augustus Caesar in the consulate of Pollio. A child was to be born, sent from heaven to earth, who should also take away the sins of the world and miraculously establish, as it were, a new age in the world. As Virgil himself says, he had been instructed by the prophecy of the Cumaean song, that is, of the Sibyl who is called Cumaean. So he says, as though urging all men to rejoice among themselves and to sing or write about this great child who is to be born, in comparison with whom he considers all other topics lowly and base: Sicilian Muse, take up a loftier theme! Hedgerow and humble tamarisk are not pleasing to all . . . Now comes the last great age, foretold in Sibyl’s song, Time, born again, begins its sequence new, Justice the maid returns; the rule of Saturn is restored, From heaven descends the new time’s first-born son. If you examine everything the Sibyl said, you will see how completely and openly she embraced the sum of Christian belief concerning Christ. In prophesying or writing, she did not fail to mention both his divinity and his humanity, both his first and his second coming, or both of his judgments; I mean, the first judgment in which, in his Passion, he was unjustly judged and the second, in which, in his majesty, he is so justly to judge the world. Since she forgets neither his descent into hell nor the glory of his Resurrection, she evidently surpasses not only the prophets but even the evangelists themselves, who wrote very little concerning that descent. Who does not marvel at the long and familiar conversation in which the Lord himself, alone with the Samaritan woman, condescended to give such careful instruction to this Gentile, to the great amazement of the apostles (John 4:7J )? He who, as we know, asked no one else for any kind of nourishment, chose to ask this woman for a drink, after he had reproached her for her unbelief and her numerous lovers. The apostles came to him and offered him the meat they had bought, saying (John 4:31): “Master, take some food.” Yet we find that their offerings were not accepted, but that he said, as if to excuse himself (4:32): “I have food to eat of which you know nothing.” He asked the woman for a drink, and she said, to excuse herself from this favor (John 4:9): “How is it that you, who are a Jew, asks me, a Samaritan, to give you a drink”; (the Jews, you must know, have no dealings with the Samaritans). She also said (John 4:11): “You have no bucket, and the well is deep.” So he who did not accept the food offered by the apostles sought a drink from an unbelieving woman, and one who refused him. What, I ask you, is this favor he shows to the weak sex, that he who gives life to all humanity should ask a woman for water? What is it but that he may openly suggest that the virtue of women is so much the more pleasing to him as their nature is known to be weaker, and that he thirsts more keenly for their salvation, the more admirable their virtue is known to be? So by asking this woman for a drink of water, he suggests that he wants chiefly to quench his thirst for the salvation of women. This drink he also calls food when he says: “I have food to eat of which you know nothing.” Explaining this food later, he says (John 4:34): “My meat is to do the will of Him who sent me.” So he implies that this is, as it were, the special will of his Father where the salvation of women is concerned. We read also that the Lord had an intimate conversation with Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, and when Nicodemus had come to him secretly, he instructed him concerning his salvation (see John 3:1–21). Yet this instruction did not bear fruit immediately. But we know that the Samaritan woman was filled at once with the spirit of prophecy and she testified that Christ had already come to the Jews and would also come to the Gentiles, when she said (John 4:25): “I know that Messiah (that is, the Christ) is to come, and when he comes he will tell us everything.” Because of this woman’s words, many from that city came running to Christ and believed in him, and made him stay with them for two days, although on another occasion he had said to his disciples (Matt. 10:5): “Do not go . . . into the walks of the Gentiles, or enter any city of Samaria.” John writes elsewhere that certain of the Gentiles, who had come up to Jerusalem to worship on the feast day, sent word to Christ by Philip and Andrew that they wished to see him (see John 12:20ff.). But he does not say that they were admitted or that Christ gave of himself so abundantly at their request as he did to that Samaritan woman who did not in any way ask it of him. It is evident that his preaching to the Gentiles began with her and not only did he convert her immediately, but through her, as has been said, he won over many to himself (see John 4:41). The wise men, who were suddenly delighted by the star and converted to Christ, are not said to have brought anyone to him by their exhortation or teaching, but to have come to him alone (see Matt. 2:12). From this, too, it is clear how much grace among the Gentiles Christ gave to the Samaritan woman who ran ahead of him into her city and announced his coming, preaching what she had heard and thus so quickly won over many of her people. If we examine both the Old Testament and the Gospel, we shall see that the supreme favors of resurrecting the dead were conferred by the divine grace chiefly on women and that such miracles were performed only for women or with respect to them. At the prayer of their mothers, we read, sons were restored to life by Elias and Elisha. When the Lord himself raised to life the son of a certain widow, and the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, and Lazarus, whose sisters prayed for this, he conferred the benefit of this exceedingly great miracle especially on women. So we have the statement of the Apostle in his epistle to the Hebrews (11:35): “There were women, too, who recovered their dead . . . brought back to life.” The girl who was restored to life recovered her own body, and to console them, the other women had those whom they were mourning restored to them. From this it is clear how much grace the Lord has always bestowed on women, whom he first made joyful by restoring both themselves and their men to life and later greatly exalted by first appearing to women after his Resurrection. The female sex seems to have acquired merit because, among a people who persecuted him, it was moved by a certain natural compassion for the Lord. As Luke says (23:27), when the men were taking him out to be crucified, their women followed, mourning and lamenting him. It was to them that the Lord turned and, as though mercifully regarding their devotion in the very moment of his Passion, foretold the coming destruction to them, so that they might be able to escape it (Luke 23:28–29): “It is not for me that you should weep, daughters of Jerusalem; you should weep for yourselves and for your children. Behold, a time is coming when men will say, ‘It is well for the barren, for the wombs that never bore children . . . .’ ” Matthew also relates that the wife of the Lord’s most unjust judge strove for his release (27:19): “Even as he sat on the judgment-seat, his wife had sent him a message, ‘Do not meddle with this innocent man; I dreamed today that I suffered much on his account . . . .’ ” When he was preaching, only a woman, out of the whole crowd, raised up her voice in such praise of him that she called blessed the womb that bore him and the breasts that suckled him (Luke 11:27). She was at once privileged to hear the pious correction of her confession, though it was very true, when he himself hastened to answer her (Luke 11:28): “Shall we not say, ‘Blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it?’ ” Of all the apostles, John alone obtained the privilege of being called the Lord’s beloved. But John himself writes of Martha and Mary (11:5): “Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” This same apostle who, as I have said, records that he alone enjoyed the privilege of being called the Lord’s beloved, has attributed to these women the same privilege, which he ascribed to none of the other apostles. Moreover, if he associated their brother with them in this honor, he placed them before him because he believed that they came first in the Lord’s affection. Returning to Christian women, I must proclaim with wonder, and marvel to proclaim, the respect paid by the divine mercy to common harlots in their lowliness. Who could be more abject than Mary Magdalen or Mary the Egyptian, as far as their former life was concerned? Yet either by honor or by merit, the divine grace later raised them to the heights. The first of these remained permanently in the apostolic community, as I have said before, and the other, it is written, strove with superhuman strength in the contests of the hermit’s life, so that the virtue of holy women might be preeminent among monks of both kinds. Thus what the Lord says to the unbelievers (Matt. 21:31): “The harlots are farther along the road to God’s kingdom than you,” could be applied to the faithful as well and those who were last, according to the difference of sex and of life, should become first and the first last. Who, finally, does not know that women took to heart the teaching of Christ and the advice of the Apostle with such zeal for chastity that to preserve the integrity of body and mind alike, they sacrificed themselves in martyrdom as a burnt offering? Triumphant in the twofold crown, they strove to follow the Lamb, the Bridegroom of virgins, wherever he might go [cf. Apoc. 14:4]. This perfection of virtue is rare indeed in men, but common in women. Some of them, we read, carried this zeal for purity of the flesh so far that they did not hesitate to lay hands on themselves, rather than forfeit the purity they had vowed to God and not come as virgins to their virginal Bridegroom. He has shown also that the devotion of holy virgins was so pleasing to him that he saved from the losses of both body and soul the multitude of a Gentile people who rushed to seek the protection of St. Agatha, when she spread out her veil against the terrible fire of seething Etna. We have no evidence that any monk’s cowl ever obtained so great a favor. We do read that when the mantle of Elias touched it, the river Jordan was divided, so that he and Elisha passed over it on dry ground. But by the veil of a virgin a great multitude of people, who were unbelievers until then, were saved in both soul and body and when they were converted, the way to heaven lay open to them. This, too, is no small commendation of holy women, that they consecrated themselves by their own words, saying: “With his ring he has espoused me; I am betrothed to him.” These are the words of St. Agnes, by which the virgins who make the same vows as she did are betrothed to Christ. Anyone who wishes to know the form and dignity of your way of life among the Gentiles, and to draw from it examples for your instruction, will readily find that among them, saving what pertains to the faith, a certain form of this calling existed. He will also discover that many practices existed among the Gentiles, as well as among the Jews, which the Church has taken over from both sources and retained, but has changed for the better. Who does not know that all the orders of the clergy, from doorkeeper to bishop, and the very use of the ecclesiastical tonsure, the mark of clerics, and the feasts of the four seasons and the offering of unleavened bread—not to mention the priestly adornments and vestments and certain ceremonies of dedication and other sacraments—were taken over by the Church from the Synagogue? Moreover, who is not aware that by a most profitable dispensation the Church has not only retained the ranks of secular dignities in kings and other princes, and certain decrees of the laws and philosophical works belonging to the converted peoples, but has also taken from them some ecclesiastical dignities and likewise the practice of continence and the life of bodily purity? It is clear that bishops and archbishops now preside where formerly there were flamens and archiflamens, and that the temples once dedicated to spirits were afterward consecrated to the Lord and dedicated to the memory of the saints. We know, too, that among the Gentiles the privilege of virginity was held in special honor, while the curse of the Law compelled the Jews to marry, and that this virtue or purity of the flesh was so highly esteemed by the Gentiles that in their temples large communities of women dedicated themselves to the celibate life. For this reason, Jerome says in the third book of his commentary on the epistle to the Galatians: “What ought we to do when, to our shame, Juno has her ‘one-man women’ and Vesta her virgins, and other idols their women vowed to continence?” He distinguished between “one-man women,” that is, nuns who have had husbands, and nuns who are virgins. For “monos,” from which we have “monk,” meaning “solitary,” signifies “one.” After citing many examples of chastity or continence in Gentile women, Jerome also says in the first book of his Against Jovinian: “I know that I have multiplied examples of pagan women, but this is so that those who despise the faith of Christian modesty may at least learn chastity from the pagans.” In the same book he had already praised the virtue of chastity so highly that it would seem that the Lord has especially approved this purity of the flesh in every people and even exalted several unbelievers either by the conferring of merits or by the performance of miracles. “What shall I say,” he asks, “of the Erythrean Sibyl and the Cumaean Sibyl, and the other eight? For Varro says that there were ten who were distinguished by their virginity, and rewarded by the gift of divination.” And he said: “When Claudia, a Vestal virgin, was suspected of fornication, she is said to have drawn by her girdle a vessel which thousands of men could not move.” In the preface to his book, Sydonius, bishop of Clermont, says:

Such as was neither Tanaquil nor she To whom thou, Trecipitinus, gave birth Nor was she, to Phrygian Vesta vowed, Who against the Tiber’s foaming tide Drew a vessel by her virgin’s hair. In the twenty-second book of The City of God, Augustine says: If we come now to their miracles, which they claim were worked by their gods and which they oppose to our martyrs, do we not find that they serve our purpose and are most useful to our argument? For among the great miracles of their gods, the greatest surely was the one of which Varro tells, when a Vestal virgin, in danger because of a false suspicion of fornication, filled a sieve with water from the Tiber and carried it to her judges without spilling a drop from any part of it. Who bore the weight of the water when there were so many holes? Cannot Almighty God remove the weight of a terrestrial body in such a way that this body may exist vivified in any element the vivifying Spirit has willed it to? It is no wonder that in these and other miracles God has exalted the chastity of unbelievers or has allowed it to be exalted through the agency of spirits, so that believers may be the more stimulated to this virtue, the more they know of the honor in which it was held by unbelievers. We know, too, that grace was conferred on the office of the priesthood, not on the person of Caiaphas (see John 11:49–52), and that if false apostles sometimes seem brilliant in their performance of miracles (cf. Matt. 24:24), these were granted not to their persons but to their office. Is it surprising, then, if the Lord has made this concession not to the persons of unbelieving women, but to their virtue of continence, so that the innocent virgin might at least be set free and the false accusation of wickedness against her confounded? It is evident that the love of continence is a good thing even among unbelievers, as the observance of the marriage bond is a gift of God among all people. So it should not seem amazing that God should honor his gifts by signs shown to the unbelieving and not to those who believe. This is especially so when, as I have said, innocence is liberated by these signs and the wickedness of perverse men checked, and men are more powerfully incited to pursue a good that is so highly exalted, and causes unbelievers also to sin less, the more they abstain from pleasures of the flesh. Not unfairly, Jerome had already come to this conclusion, along with many others, when he wrote against the incontinent heretic Jovinian, that he should blush to find in pagans a virtue not to be marveled at in Christians. Who, moreover, would deny that even the power of unbelieving princes, though they may use it perversely, is a gift of God, as also are the love of justice or the clemency they show when they are guided by the natural law, or the other virtues becoming to princes? Who would say that because these qualities are mixed with evil, they are not good, especially when, according to St. Augustine and the manifest evidence of reason, things cannot be evil except in a good nature? Who does not approve the thought embodied in the poet’s maxim: “It is for love of virtue that good men shrink from sinning”? Who, in order to encourage princes to imitate this example, would not approve rather than reject the miracle attributed to Vespasian by Suetonius—I mean, his healing of the blind man and the lame man or what St. Gregory is reported to have done for the soul of Trajan? Men know how to find a pearl in the mire and how to separate the grain from the chaff. God cannot fail to acknowledge his gifts, even when they have been bestowed on unbelievers, nor can he hate any of the gifts that he has given. The more brilliant the signs of these benefits, the more clearly does God show that they are his; nor can his gifts be corrupted by human wickedness who, by revealing himself in this way to unbelievers, shows what those who believe may hope from him. The great dignity achieved among the unbelievers by the chastity of virgins dedicated to the service of the temples is demonstrated by the punishment meted out to those who violated this virtue. In his fourth satire, Against Crispinus, Juvenal says of this punishment: With him the Vestal crowned with fillets lately lay, Who now with blood still warm must lie beneath the earth. On this subject Augustine also says, in the third book of The City of God: The ancient Romans themselves used to bury alive the priestesses of Vesta who were taken in fornication . . . But adulteresses, though subject to some punishment, were never condemned to death; so much more harshly did they avenge what they considered a divine sanctuary than they did the human marriage-bed. As for ourselves, Christian princes make more careful provisions for your chastity, since they have no doubt that it is still more sacred. So the Emperor Justinian says: “If anyone shall dare, I do not say to ravish, but merely to approach the holy virgins with a view of matrimony, he shall be punished with death.” There is no doubt also concerning the severe sanctions by which ecclesiastical discipline, which seeks the remedy of penitence rather than punishment by death, prevents your lapses. To confirm this, we have the word of Pope Innocent to Bishop Victricius: “Those who are spiritually wedded to Christ and are veiled by the priest, if afterwards they either marry publicly or are secretly corrupted, are not to be admitted to the performance of penance, unless he to whom they have joined themselves should have departed this life.” But those who have not taken the veil, yet who nonetheless have always pretended to remain in the virginal state, are to do penance for a certain time, even though they have not been veiled, because their bridal vow is held by the Lord. If, among men, it is commonly accepted that contracts made in good faith may not be broken for any reason, how much less can the pact these women have made with God be broken without punishment? If the Apostle Paul said that those who have abandoned the state of widowhood stand condemned because they have broken their first promise, how much more so are virgins who have not kept at all the vows of their former state? It was this thought that inspired the famous Pelagius when he wrote to the daughter of Mauritius: She who is an adulteress against Christ is guiltier than one who is an adulteress against her husband. For this reason the Roman Church rightly decreed, not long ago, such a severe sentence for an offense of this kind, that it hardly considers those fit to receive penance who have polluted with lust the body consecrated to God. If we wish to examine the care, solicitude, and charity that the holy doctors, inspired by the examples of the Lord himself and of the apostles, have always shown to devout women, we shall find that they sustained and encouraged the devotion of these women with the greatest affection, and steadfastly directed and increased their piety with numerous instructions and exhortations. Without mentioning others, I may cite the principal doctors of the Church, namely, Origen, Ambrose, and Jerome. The first of these, the greatest Christian philosopher, devoted himself so zealously to the religious life of women that, according to the Ecclesiastical History, he laid hands on himself, so that no suspicion might prevent him from teaching and guiding women. Who does not know, moreover, how great a harvest of books St. Jerome left to the Church, at the request of Paula and Eustochium? Among other things, he told them when he was writing a sermon at their request on the Assumption of the Lord’s mother: “But since I cannot refuse anything you ask, bound as I am by my great love of you, I shall attempt what you urge me to do.” We know, on the other hand, that several of the greatest doctors, men of the very highest dignity in the order to which they belonged, as well as in their lives, wrote to Jerome when they were far away, begging for a few lines from him, and they did not receive them. As Augustine says in the second book of the Retractions: I wrote two books also for the priest Jerome, when he was living in Bethlehem, one on the origin of the soul and the other concerning the opinion of the apostle James when he says (2:10): “The man who has failed in one point, though he has kept the rest of the law, is liable to all its penalties, and I consulted him about each of these. In the first, I myself did not resolve the question I proposed; in the second, I did not conceal what seemed to me to be its solution. But I wanted to know whether he approved of it, so I asked him about it. He answered, praising me for consulting him, but saying that he did not have time to reply. As long as he was alive, I was unwilling to publish these books, hoping that he might reply sometime and thinking it would be better if the books were published with his answer. But now that he is dead, I have published them.” Think how this great man waited so long for a very brief reply from Jerome and did not receive it. Yet we know that, at the urging of the women I have mentioned, he labored over the copying and the dictation of many great volumes, showing in this far more reverence for them than for a bishop. Perhaps he was more zealously concerned for their virtue and could not bear to cause them sorrow because he considered their nature weaker. For this reason, too, the strength of his love for women of this kind is sometimes so great that in his praise of them he seems to exceed somewhat the bounds of truth, as if he had experienced himself what he says elsewhere, that “charity has no limits.” At the very beginning of his Life of St. Paula, as though wishing to call the reader’s attention to himself, he says: “If all the parts of my body were turned into tongues and if every joint spoke with the human voice, I could say nothing worthy of the virtues of the holy Paula.” Yet he wrote several lives of the venerable and holy fathers, lives resplendent with miracles, in which the facts related are far more marvelous. But he does not seem to have praised any of these fathers so eloquently as he extolled this widow. When he wrote to the virgin Demetrias, he also adorned the salutation of his letter with such great praise of her that he seems to fall into excessive flattery. He says: Of all the subjects on which I have written from my childhood to my present age, either by my own hand or through scribes, none has been more difficult than the present work. If I were to write to Demetrias, the virgin of Christ, who is also first in nobility and riches in the city of Rome, all the praises which her virtues deserve, I should be considered a flatterer. This holy man found it very sweet to use all the arts of words to inspire a frail nature to the arduous pursuit of virtue. But in this matter his actions provide us with better examples than his words, for he showed such loving charity for pious women that his immense sanctity itself caused a blot on his reputation. He said that himself when, among other things, he was writing to Asella about false friends and those who slandered him: Although some think I am a reprobate and sunk in every vice, you do well to follow your conscience and think that even evil men are good. It is dangerous for a man to judge his neighbor’s servant and it is not a venial fault to speak evil of the good . . . Certain men have kissed my hands and then have slandered me with the tongues of vipers. Sorrow was on their lips, but they rejoiced in their hearts. Let them say what they have ever detected in me that is not becoming to a Christian. No fault is found in me except my sex, nor would that fault be found if Paula did not come to Jerusalem. He also says: Before I became acquainted with the household of the holy Paula, my praises were sung throughout the city. In the judgment of everyone I was considered worthy of the supreme pontificate. But after I began to admire her because her sanctity deserved it, and to visit her and take care of her, all my virtues immediately departed from me. Later on he declared: “Salute Paula and Eustochium, whether they wish it or not, they are mine in Christ.” The Lord himself, we read, showed such familiarity to the blessed harlot that the Pharisee who had invited him began to have doubts about him, saying to himself (Luke 7:39): “If this man were a prophet, he would know what this women is who is touching him.” Is it any wonder, then, that the members of Christ, inspired by his example, do not fear any damage to their reputations, in their efforts to win these souls? When he tried to avoid this damage, Origen, as I have said, endured a more grievous injury to his body. Not only in the teaching and exhortation of holy women have the fathers displayed their marvelous charity, but in comforting these women, their charity has at times shone so brightly that in their compassion and their efforts to soothe the women’s grief, they seem to promise certain things contrary to the faith. An example of this is the consolation offered by St. Ambrose when, on the death of the Emperor Valentinian, he was so bold as to write to the emperor’s sisters and promise them the salvation of a man who was a catechumen when he died, and this promise seems greatly at variance with the Catholic faith and the truth of the Gospel. But these holy fathers well knew how pleasing to God the virtue of the weaker sex has always been. Although we see countless virgins who follow the Lord’s mother as a model of chastity, we know of few men who have achieved the grace of this virtue by which they might be able to follow the Lamb himself wherever he may go. In their devotion to this virtue, some women even laid hands on themselves, in order to preserve the integrity of the flesh they had consecrated to God. Not only are they not condemned for this, but because of their martyrdoms many churches have rightly been dedicated to them. If betrothed virgins should decide, before they have carnal union with their husbands, to choose the monastic life, and to reject man and make God their bridegroom, they have freedom to do so. As far as we know, this has never been granted to men. Many holy women were also fired with such zeal for chastity that, in order to maintain their purity, they put on male attire, and even living among monks, they so excelled in virtue that they were considered worthy of being made abbots. Such was the case with St. Eugenia, who with the knowledge, or rather at the command of her bishop, St. Helenus, assumed the dress of a man, and after being baptized by him, was admitted to a community of monks. I think, dearest sister in Christ, that I have replied sufficiently to the first of your most recent requests, concerning the authority for your order and also in praise of its dignity. I trust that as you grow more fully aware of its excellence, you may embrace more zealously the way of life to which you are vowed. Now, God willing, I hope to fulfill your second request, aided by your merits and your prayers. Farewell.

Original letter:

Caritati tuae, carissima soror de origine tuae professionis tam tibi quam spiritualibus filiabus tuis sciscitanti, unde scilicet monialium coeperit religio paucis, si potero, succincteque rescribam. Monachorum siquidem sive monialium ordo a Domino nostro Iesu Christo religionis suae formam plenissime sumpsit; quamvis et ante ipsius Incarnationem nonnulla huius propositi tam in viris quam in feminis praecesserit inchoatio. Unde et Hieronymus ad Rusticum scribens: "Filios," inquit, "Prophetarum quos monachos legimus in Veteri Testamento, etc." Annam quoque viduam templo et divino cultui assiduam evangelista commemorat, quae pariter cum Simeone Dominum in templo suscipere, et prophetia repleri meruerit. Finis itaque Christus iustitiae et omnium bonorum consummatio, in plenitudine temporis veniens, ut inchoata perficeret bona vel exhiberet incognita, sicut utrumque sexum vocare venerat atque redimere, ita utrumque sexum in vero monachatu suae congregationis dignatus est adunare ut inde tam viris quam feminis huius professionis daretur auctoritas, et omnibus perfectio vitae proponeretur quam imitarentur. Ibi quippe cum apostolis ceterisque discipulis, cum matre ipsius, sanctarum legimus conventum mulierum quae scilicet saeculo abrenuntiantes omnemque proprietatem abdicantes ut solum possiderent Christum, sicut scriptum est: Dominus pars haereditatis meae, devote illud compleverunt, quo omnes secundum regulam a Domino traditam conversi a saeculo ad huius vitae communitatem initiantur: Nisi quis renuntiaverit omnibus quae possidet, non potest meus esse discipulus. Quam devote autem Christum hae beatissimae mulieres ac vere moniales secutae fuerint, quantamque gratiam et honorem devotioni earum tam ipse Christus quam postmodum apostoli exhibuerint, sacrae diligenter historiae continent. Legimus in Evangelio murmurantem Pharisaeum, qui hospitio Dominum susceperat, ab ipso esse correptum, et peccatricis mulieris obsequium hospitio eius longe esse praelatum. Legimus et, Lazaro iam resuscitato cum ceteris discumbente, Martham sororem eius solam mensis ministrare, et Mariam copiosi libram unguenti pedibus Dominicis infundere, propriisque capillis ipsos extergere huiusque copiosi unguenti odore domum ipsam impletam fuisse, ac de pretio ipsius, quia tam inaniter consumi videretur, Iudam in concupiscentiam ductum et discipulos indignatos esse. Satagente itaque Martha de cibis, Maria disponit de unguentis; et quem illa reficit interius, haec lassatum fovet exterius.
Nec nisi feminas Domino ministrasse Scriptura commemorat Evangelica, quae proprias etiam facultates in quotidianam eius alimoniam dicarant et ei praecipue huius vitae necessaria procurabant. Ipse discipulis in mensa, ipse in ablutione pedum humillimum se ministrum exhibebat.  A nullo vero discipulorum vel etiam virorum hoc eum suscepisse novimus obsequium; sed solas, ut diximus, feminas in his vel ceteris humanitatis obsequiis ministerium impendisse. Et sicut in illo Marthae, ita in isto novimus obsequium Mariae, quae quidem in hoc exhibendo tanto fuit devotior quanto ante fuerat criminosior. Dominus, aqua in pelvim missa, illius ablutionis peregit officium, hoc vero ipsa ei lacrymis intimae compunctionis, non exteriori aqua exhibuit. Ablutos discipulorum pedes linteo Dominus extersit, haec pro linteo capillis usa est. Fomenta unguentorum insuper addidit, quae nequaquam Dominum adhibuisse  legimus. Quis etiam ignoret mulierem in tantum de ipsius gratia praesumpsisse ut caput quoque eius superfuso delibuerit unguento? Quod quidem unguentum non de alabastro extractum, sed fracto alabastro memoratur effusum ut nimiae devotionis vehemens exprimeretur desiderium, quae ad nullum ulterius usum illud reservandum censebat, quo in tanto usa sit obsequio. In quo etiam ipsum iam unctionis <effectum> factis ipsis exhibet quem antea Daniel futurum praedixerat, postquam videlicet inungeretur sanctus sanctorum. Ecce enim sanctum sanctorum mulier inungit, et eum pariter hunc esse quem credit, et quem verbis propheta praesignaverat factis ipsa proclamat. Quae est ista, quaeso, Domini benignitas, aut quae mulierum dignitas ut tam caput quam pedes suos ipse nonnisi feminis praeberet inungendos? Quae est ista, obsecro, infirmioris sexus praerogativa, ut summum Christum omnibus Sancti Spiritus unguentis ab ipsa eius conceptione delibutum mulier quoque inungeret, et quasi corporalibus sacramentis eum in regem et sacerdotem consecrans, Christum, id est, unctum corporaliter ipsum efficeret?
Scimus primum a patriarcha Iacob in typum Domini lapidem unctum fuisse, et postmodum regum sive sacerdotum unctiones, seu quaelibet unctionum sacramenta nonnisi viris celebrare permissum est, licet baptizare nonnumquam mulieres praesumant. Lapidem olim patriarcha, templum nunc et altare pontifex oleo sanctificat. Viri itaque sacramenta figuris imprimunt. Mulier vero in ipsa operate est veritate, sicut et ipsa protestatur Veritas, dicens:  Bonum opus operata est in me, Christus ipse a muliere, Christiani a viris inunguntur; caput ipsum, scilicet, a femina, membra a viris.  Bene autem effudisse unguentum non stillasse super caput eius mulier memoratur, secundum quod de ipso sponsa in Canticis praecinit dicens: Unguentum effusum nomen tuum Hujus quoque unguenti copiam per illus quod a capite usque ad oram vestimenti defluit Psalmista mystice praefigurat, dicens: Sicut unguentum in capite quod descendit in barbam, barbam Aaron, quod descendit in oram vestimenti eius.
Trinam David unctionem, sicut et Hieronymus in psalmo XXVI meminit, accepisse legimus, trinam et Christum sive Christianos. Pedes quippe Domini sive caput muliebre susceperunt unguentum, mortuum vero ipsum Ioseph ab Arimathea et Nicodemus, sicut refert Ioannes, cum aromatibus sepelierunt. Christiani quoque trina sanctificantur unctione, quarum una fit in baptismo, altera in confirmatione, tertia vero infirmorum est. Perpende itaque mulieris dignitatem, a qua vivens Christus bis inunctus, tam in pedibus scilicet quam in capite, regis et sacerdotis suscepit sacramenta. Myrrhae vero et aloes unguentum, quod ad conservanda corpora mortuorum adhibetur, ipsius Dominici corporis incorruptionem futuram praesignabat, quam etiam quilibet electi in resurrectione sunt adepturi. Priora autem mulieris unguenta singularem eius tam regni quam sacerdotii demonstrant dignitatem, unctio quidem capitis superiorem, pedum vero inferiorem. Ecce regis etiam sacramentum a muliere suscipit, qui tamen oblatum a viris sibi regnum suscipere respuit, et ipsis eum in regem rapere volentibus aufugit. Caelestis non terreni regis mulier sacramentum peragit; eius, inquam, qui de semetipso postmodum ait: Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo. Gloriantur episcopi cum, applaudentibus populis, terrenos inungunt reges, cum mortales consecrant sacerdotes splendidis et inauratis vestibus adornati. Et saepe his benedicunt quibus Dominus maledicit. Humilis mulier, non mutato habitu, non praeparato cultu, ipsis quoque indignantibus apostolis, haec in Christo sacramenta peragit non praelationis officio, sed devotionis merito. O magnam fidei constantiam! O inaestimabilem caritatis ardorem, quae omnia credit, omnia sperat, omnia sustinet! Murmurat Pharisaeus dum a peccatrice Dominici pedes inunguntur. Indignantur patenter apostoli quod de capite quoque mulier praesumpserit. Perseverat ubique mulieris fides immota, de benignitate Domini confisa, nec ei in utroque Dominicae commendationis desunt suffragia. Cuius quidem unguenta quam accepta, quam grata Dominus habuerit, ipsemet profitetur cum sibi haec reservari postulans indignanti Iudae dixerit: Sine illam ut in die sepulturae meae servet illud. Ac si diceret: Ne repellas hoc eius obsequium a vivo, ne devotionis eius exhibitionem in hac quoque re auferas defuncto.
 Certum quippe est sepulturae quoque Dominicae sanctas mulieres aromata parasse, quod tunc ista utique minus satageret, si nunc repulsa verecundiam sustinuisset. Qui etiam quasi de tanta mulieris praesumptione discipulis indignantibus, et, ut Marcus meminit, in eam frementibus, cum eos mitissimis fregisset responsis, in tantum hoc extulit beneficium, ut ipsum Evangelio inserendum esse censeret, et cum ipso pariter ubique praedicandum esse praediceret in memoriam, scilicet, et laudem mulieris, quae id fecerit in quo non mediocris arguebatur praesumptionis. Quod nequaquam de aliis quarumcumque personarum obsequiis auctoritate Dominica sic commendatum esse legimus atque sancitum. Qui etiam viduae pauperis eleemosynam omnibus templi praeferens oblationibus, quam accepta sit ei feminarum devotio diligenter ostendit.
  Ausus quidem est Petrus seipsum et coapostolos suos pro Christo omnia reliquisse profiteri, et Zacchaeus desideratum Domini adventum suscipiens, dimidium bonorum suorum pauperibus largitur, et in quadruplum, si quid defraudavit, restituit. Et multi alii maiores in Christo seu pro Christo fecerunt expensas et longe pretiosiora in obsequium obtulerunt divinum vel pro Christo reliquerunt, nec ita tamen Dominicae commendationis laudem adepti sunt sicut feminae. Quarum quidem devotio quanta semper erga eum extiterit, ipse quoque Dominicae vitae exitus patenter insinuat.
Hae quippe, ipso apostolorum principe negante, et dilecto Domini fugiente, vel ceteris dispersis apostolis, intrepidae perstiterunt, nec eas a Christo, vel in passione vel in morte, formido aliqua vel desperatio separare potuit, ut eis specialiter illud Apostoli congruere videatur: Quis nos separabit a caritate Dei? Tribulatio? an angustia? etc. Unde Matthaeus, cum de se pariter et ceteris retulisset: Tunc discipuli omnes, relicto eo, jugerunt, perseverantiam postmodum supposuit mulierum, quae ipsi etiam crucifixo quantum permittebatur assistebant. Erant, inquit, ibi mulieres multae a longe quae secutae fuerant Iesum a Galilaea, ministrantes ei, etc. Quas denique ipsius quoque sepulcro immobiliter adhaerentes, idem diligenter evangelista describit, dicens: Erant autem Maria Magdalene et altera Maria sedentes contra sepulcrum. De quibus etiam mulieribus Marcus commemorans, ait: Erant autem et mulieres de longe aspicientes, inter quas erat Magdalene, et Maria Jacobi minoris et Joseph mater, et Salome. Et cum esset in Galilaea sequebantur eum et ministrabant ei, et aliae multae quae simul cum eo ascenderant Hierosolymam.
Stetisse autem iuxta crucem et crucifixo se etiam astitisse Ioannes, qui prius aufugerat, narrat; sed perseverantiam praemittit mulierum  quasi earum exemplo animatus esset ac revocatus. Stabant, inquit, iuxta crucem Iesu mater eius, et soror matris eius Maria Cleophae, et Maria Magdalene. Cum vidisset ergo Iesus matrem et discipulum stantem, etc. Hanc autem sanctarum constantiam mulierum, et discipulorum defectum longe ante beatus Iob in persona Domini prophetavit, dicens: Pelli meae, consumptibus carnibus, adhaesit os meum et derelicta sunt tantummodo labia circa dentes meos. In osse quippe, quod carnem et pellem sustentat et gestat, fortitudo est corporis. In corpore igitur Christi, quod est Ecclesia, os ipsius dicitur Christianae fidei stabile fundamentum, sive fervor ille  caritatis de quo canitur: Aquae multae non poterunt extinguere caritatem, etc." De quo et Apostolus: Omnia, inquit, suffert, omnia credit, omnia sperat, omnia sustinet. Caro autem in corpore pars interior est, et pellis exterior.  Apostoli ergo interiori animae cibo praedicando intendentes, et mulieres corporis (necessaria procurantes, carni comparantur et pelli. Cum itaque carnes consumerentur, os Christi adhaesit pelli, quia, scandalizatis in passione Domini apostolis, et de morte ipsius desperatis, sanctarum devotio feminarum perstitit immobilis, et ab osse Christi minime recessit, quia fidei, vel spei, vel caritatis constantiam in tantum retinuit, ut nec a mortuo mente disiungerentur aut corpore. Sunt et viri naturaliter tam mente quam corpore feminis fortiores. Unde et merito per carnem, quae vicinior est ossi, virilis natura; per pellem muliebris infirmitas designatur. Ipsi quoque apostoli, quorum est reprehendendo lapsus aliorum mordere, dentes Domini dicuntur. Quibus tantummodo labia, id est, verba potius quam facta remanserant, cum iam desperati de Christo magis loquerentur quam pro Christo quid operarentur. Tales profecto illi erant discipuli quibus in castellum Emmaus euntibus et loquentibus adinvicem de his omnibus quae acciderant ipse apparuit, et eorum desperationem correxit. Quid denique Petrus vel ceteri discipulorum praeter verba tunc habuerunt, cum ad Dominicam ventum esset passionem, et ipse Dominus futurum eis de passione sua scandalum praedixisset? Et si omnes, inquit Petrus scandalizati fuerint in te ego numquam scandalizabor. Et iterum: Etiam si oportuerit me mori tecum, non te negabo. Similiter et omnes discipuli dixerunt. Dixerunt, inquam, potius quam fecerunt. Ille primus et maximus apostolorum qui tantam in verbis habuerat constantiam ut Domino diceret: Tecum paratus sum et in carcerem et in mortem ire; cui tunc et Dominus ecclesiam suam specialiter committens, dixerat: Et tu aliquando conversus confirma fratres tuos, ad unam ancillae vocem ipsum negare non veretur, nec semel id agit sed tertio ipsum adhuc viventem denegat; et a vivo pariter omnes discipuli uno temporis puncto fugiendo devolant, a quo nec in morte vel mente vel corpore feminae sunt disiunctae. Quarum beata illa peccatrix, mortuum etiam quaerens et Dominum suum confitens, ait: Tulerunt Dominum de monumento. Et iterum: Si tu sustulisti eum, dicito mihi ubi posuisti eum et ego eum tollam.  Fugiunt arietes, immo et pastores Dominici gregis; remanent oves intrepidae. Arguit nos Dominus tamquam infirmam carnem, quod in articulo etiam passionis suae nec una hora cum eo potuerunt vigilare. Insomnem ad sepulcrum illius noctem in lacrymis feminae ducentes, resurgentis gloriam primae videre meruerunt. Cui fideliter in mortem quantum dilexerint vivum, non tam verbis quam rebus exhibuerunt. Et de ipsa etiam, quam circa eius passionem et mortem habuerunt sollicitudinem, resurgentis vita primae sunt laetificatae. Cum enim, secundum Ioannem, Ioseph ab Arimathaea et Nicodemus corpus Domini ligantes linteis cum aromatibus sepelirent, refert Marcus de earum studio quod Maria Magdalene et Maria Ioseph aspiciebant ubi poneretur. De his quoque Lucas commemorat, dicens: Secutae autem mulieres, quae cum Iesu venerant de Galilaea, viderunt monumentum et quemadmodum positum erat corpus eius et revertentes paraverunt aromata, non satis videlicet habentes aromata Nicodemi, nisi et adderent sua. Et sabbato quidem siluerunt secundum mandatum; iuxta Marcum vero, cum transisset Sabbatum, summo mane in ipso die resurrectionis venerunt ad monumentum Maria Magdalene et Maria Iacobi et Salome.
Nunc quoniam devotionem earum ostendimus, honorem quem meruerunt prosequamur. Primo angelica visione sunt consolatae de resurrectione Domini iam completa, demum ipsum Dominum primae viderunt et tenuerunt. Prior quidem Maria Magdalene, quae ceteris ferventior erat, postea ipsa simul et aliae, de quibus scriptum est, quod post angelicam visionem, exierunt de monumento . . . currentes nuntiare discipulis resurrectionem Domini. Et ecce Iesus occurrit illis, dicens: Avete. Illae autem accesserunt et tenuerunt pedes eius, et adoraverunt eum. Tunc ait illis Iesus  . . : Ite, nuntiate fratribus meis ut eant in Galilaeam; ibi me videbunt. De quo et Lucas prosecutus ait: Erat Maria Magdalene et Joanna et Maria Iacobi et ceterae, quae cum eis erant, quae dicebant ad apostolos haec. Quas etiam ab angelo primum fuisse missas ad apostolos nuntiare haec non reticet Marcus, ubi angelo mulieribus loquente scriptum est: Surrexit, non est hic . . . Sed ite, dicite discipulis eius et Petro quia praecedet vos in Galilaeam. Ipse etiam Dominus primo Mariae Magdalenae apparens ait illi: Vade ad fratres meos et dic eos:  Ascendo ad patrem meum etc. Ex quibus colligimus has sanctas mulieres quasi apostolas super apostolos esse constitutas, cum ipsae ad eos vel a Domino vel ab angelis missae summum illus resurrectionis gaudium nuntiaverunt, quod exspectabatur ab omnibus, ut per eas apostoli primum addiscerent quod toti mundo postmodum praedicarent.
Quas etiam post resurrectionem, Domino occurrente, salutari ab ipso evangelista supra memoravit ut, tam occursu suo quam salutatione, quantam erga eas sollicitudinem et gratiam haberet, ostenderet.  Non enim aliis proprium salutation verbum, quod est Avete, eum legimus protulisse, immo et a salutatione antea discipulos inhibuisse, cum eis diceret:  Et neminem per viam salutaveritis, quasi hoc privilegium nunc usque devotis feminis reservaret quod per semetipsum eis exhiberet, immortalitatis gloria iam potitus. Actus quoque Apostolorum, cum referant statim post ascensionem Domini apostolos a monte Oliveti Hierusalem rediisse et illius sacrosancti conventus religionem diligenter describant, non est devotionis sanctarum mulierum perseverantia praetermissa, cum dicitur: Hi omnes erant perseverantes unanimiter in orationibus cum mulieribus et Maria matre Iesu.
Ut autem de Hebraeis praetermittamus feminis quae primo conversae ad fidem, vivente adhuc Domino in carne et praedicante? formam huius religionis inchoaverunt,de viduis quoque Graecorum quae ab apostolis postea susceptae sunt consideremus, quanta scilicet diligentia, quanta cura ab apostolis et ipsae tractatae sint, cum ad ministrandum eis gloriosissimus signifer christianae militiae Stephanus protomartyr cum quibusdam aliis spiritalibus viris ab ipsis apostolis fuerit constitutus.  Unde in eisdem Actibus Apostolorum scriptum est:  Crescente numero discipulorum factum est murmur Graecorum adversus Hebraeos quod despicerentur in ministerio quotidiano viduae eorum.  Convocantes autem duodecim apostoli multitudinem discipulorum, dixerunt:  Non est aequum derelinquere nos verbum Dei, et ministrare mensis.  Considerate ergo, fratres, viros ex omnibus vobis boni testimonii septem, plenos Spiritu Sancto et sapientia, quos constituamus super hoc opus.  Nos vero orationi et ministerio verbi instantes erimus.  Et placuit sermo coram multitudine, et elegerunt Stephanum, plenum fide et Spiritu Sancto, et Philippum et Prochorum et Nicanorem, et Timotheum et Parmenam ef Nicolaum Antiochenum. Hos statuerunt ante conspectum apostolorum et orantes imposuerunt eis manus.
Unde et continentia Stephani admodum commendatur quod ministerio atque obsequio sanctarum feminarum fuerit deputatus. Cuius quidem obsequii ministratio, quam excellens sit, et tam Deo quam ipsis apostolis accepta, ipsi tam propria oratione quam manuum impositione protestati sunt; quasi hos, quos in hoc constituebant, adiurantes ut fideliter agerent, et tam benedictione sua quam oratione, eos adiuvantes ut possent. Quam etiam Paulus administrationem ad apostolatus sui plenitudinem ipse sibi vendicans: Numquid non habemus, inquit, potestatem sororem mulierem circumducendi, sicut et ceteri apostoli? Ac si aperte diceret: Numquid etiam sanctarum mulierum conventus nos habere ac nobiscum in praedicatione ducere permissum est, sicut ceteris apostolis, ut ipsae videlicet eis in praedicatione de sua substantia necessaria ministrarent? Unde Augustinus in libro De Opere Monachorum:

Ad hoc, inquit, et fideles mulieres habentes terrenam substantiam ibant cum eis, et ministrabant eis de sua substantia, ut nullius indigerent horum quae ad substantiam huius vitae pertinent. Item: Quod quisquis non putat . . . ab apostolis fieri ut cum eis sanctae conversationis mulieres circuirent quocumque Evangelium praedicabant; . . Evangelium audiant et cognoscant quemadmodum hoc ipsius Domini exemplo faciebant ... In Evangelio enim scriptum est: Deinceps et ipse iter faciebat per civitates et castella . . . evangelizans regnum Dei, et duodecim cum illo et mulieres aliquae, quae erant curatae a spiritibus immundis et infirmitatibus, Maria quae vocatur Magdalene . . . et Ioanna uxor Chuzae procurators Herodis, et Susanna, et aliae multae, quae ministrabant ei de facultatibus suis.

Ut hinc quoque pateat Dominum etiam in praedicatione sua proficiscentem ministratione mulierum corporaliter sustentari et eas ipsi pariter cum apostolis quasi inseparabiles comites adhaerere.
    Demum vero huius professionis religione in feminis pariter ut in viris multiplicata, in ipso statim Ecclesiae nascentis exordio aeque sicut viri, ita et feminae propriorum per se monasteriorum habitacula possederunt. Unde et Ecclesiastica Historia laudem Philonis disertissimi Iudaei quam non solum dixit verum etiam magnifice scripsit de Alexandrina sub Marco Ecclesia, ita inter cetera libro secundo, capitulo XVII, commemorat:

In multis est, inquit, orbis terrae partibus hoc genus hominum. Et post aliqua: Est autem ... in singulis locis consecrata orationi domus quae appellatur 'semneion' vel monasterium. Item infra: Itaque non solum subtilium intelligunt hymnos veterum, sed ipsi faciunt novos in Deum, omnibus eos et metris et sonis honesta satis et suavi compage modulantes.

Item plerisque de abstinentia eorum praemissis, et divini cultus officiis adiecit:

Cum viris autem, quos dicimus, sunt et feminae in quibus plures iam grandaevae sunt virgines, integritatem et castitatem corporis non necessitate aliqua sed devotione servantes, dum sapientiae studiis semet gestiunt non solum anima, sed et corpore consecrare, indignum ducentes libidini mancipare vas ad capiendam sapientiam praeparatum, et edere mortalem partum eas, a quibus divini verbi concubitus sacrosanctus et immortalis expetitur, ex quo posteritas relinquatur nequaquam corruptelae mortalitatis obnoxia. Item ibidem de Philone: Etiam de conventibus eorum scribit ut seorsum quidem viri seorsum etiam in eisdem locis feminae congregentur et ut vigilias, sicut apud nos fieri moris est, peragant.

Hinc illud est in laude Christianae philosophiae, hoc est monasticae praerogativae, quod et Tripartita commemorat Historia non minus a feminis quam a viris arreptae. Ait quippe sic libro I, capitulo XI:

Huius elegantissimae philosophiae princeps fuit quidem, sicuti quidam dicunt, Elias propheta et Baptista Ioannes. Philo autem Pythagorius suis temporibus refert undique egregios Hebraeorum in quodam praedio circa stagnum Mariam in colle positum philosophatos. Habitaculum vero eorum et cibos et conversationem talem introducit qualem et nos nunc apud Aegyptiorum monachos esse conspicimus. Scribit eos . . . ante solis occasum non gustare cibum . . . vino semper et sanguinem habentibus abstinere, cibum eis esse panis et salis et hysopi et potum aquae. Mulieres eis cohabitare seniores virgines propter amorem philosophiae spontanea voluntate nuptiis abstinentes.

Hinc et illud est Hieronymi in Libro de illustribus Viris capitulo VIII de laude Marci et ecclesiae sic scribentis:

Primus Alexandriae Christum annuntians constituit ecclesiam tantae doctrinae et vitae continentiae ut omnes sectatores Christi ad exemplum sui cogeret. Denique Philo disertissimus Iudaeorum videns Alexandriae primam ecclesiam adhuc iudaizantem quasi in laudem gentis suae librum super eorum conversione scripsit, et quo modo Lucas narrat Hierosolimae credentes omnia habuisse communia, sic ille quod Alexandriae sub Marco doctore fieri cernebat memoriae tradidit. Item capitulo XI: Philo Iudaeus natione Alexandrinus de genere sacerdotum idcirco a nobis inter scriptores ecclesiasticos ponitur quia librum de prima Marci evangelistae apud Alexandriam scribens ecclesia in nostrorum laude versatus est. Non solum eos ibi, sed in multis quoque provinciis esse commemorans et habitacula eorum dicens monasteria.
Ex quo apparet talem primum Christo credentium fuisse ecclesiam, quales nunc monachi esse imitantur, et capiunt ut nihil cuiusquam proprium sit, nullus inter eos dives, nullus pauper, patrimonia egentibus dividantur, orationi vacetur et psalmis, doctrinae quoque et continentiae, quales et Lucas refert primum Hierosolimae fuisse credentes.
Quod si veteres revolvamus historias, reperiemus in ipsis feminas in his quae ad Deum pertinent vel ad quamcumque religionis singularitatem a viris non fuisse disiunctas. Quas etiam pariter ut viros divina cantica non solum cecinisse, verum etiam composuisse sacrae tradunt historiae. Primum quippe canticum de liberatione Israelitici populi non solum viri, sed etiam mulieres Domino decantaverunt hinc statim divinorum officiorum in ecclesia celebrandorum auctoritatem ipsae adeptae. Sic quippe scriptum est: Sumpsit ergo Maria prophetes soror Aaron, tympanum in manu sua; egressaeque sunt omnes mulieres post eam cum tympanis et choris, quibus praecinebat dicens: Cantemus Domino; gloriose enim magnificatus est, etc. Nec ibi quidem Moyses commemoratur propheta, nec praecinisse dicitur sicut Maria, nec tympanum aut chorum habuisse viri referuntur sicut mulieres. Cum itaque Maria praecinens prophetes commemoratur, videtur ipsa non tam dictando vel recitando quam prophetando canticum istud protulisse. Quae etiam cum ceteris praecinere describitur, quam ordinate sive concorditer psallerent demonstratur. Quod autem non solum voce, verum etiam tympanis et choris cecinerunt, non solum earum maximam devotionem insinuat verum etiam mystice specialis cantici in congregationibus monasticis formam diligenter exprimit. Ad quod et Psalmista nos exhortatur, dicens: Laudate eum in tympano et choro, hoc est in mortificatione carnis et concordia illa caritatis de qua scriptum est quia multitudinis credentium erat cor unum et anima una. Nec vacat etiam a mysterio quod egressae ad cantandum referuntur, in quo animae contemplativae jubili figurantur; quae dum ad caelestia se suspendit, quasi terrenae habitationis castra deserit et de ipsa contemplationis suae intima dulcedine hymnum spiritalem summa exultatione Domino persolvit. Habemus ibi quoque Debborae et Annae necnon Iudith viduae cantica, sicut et in Evangelio Mariae matris Domini. Quae videlicet Anna Samuelem parvulum suum offerens tabernaculo Domini auctoritatem suscipiendorum infantium monasteriis dedit. Unde Isidorus fratribus in coenobio Honorianensi constitutis, capitulo V:

Quicumque, inquit, a parentibus propriis in monasterio fuerit delegatus, noverit se ibi perpetuo mansurum. Nam Anna Samuelem puerum Deo obtulit, qui et in ministerio templi quo a matre fuerat functus permansit, et ubi constitutus est deservivit.

Constat etiam filias Aaron pariter cum fratribus suis ad sanctuarium et haereditariam sortem Levi adeo pertinere, ut hinc quoque eis Dominus alimoniam instituterit, sicut scriptum est in libro Numeri, ipso ad Aaron sic dicente: Omnes primitias sanctuarii, quas offerunt filii Israel Domino, tibi dedi, et filiis ac filiabus tuis iure perpetuo. Unde nec a clericorum ordine mulierum religio disiuncta videtur. Quas etiam ipsis nomine coniunctas esse constat,cum videlicet tam diaconissas quam diaconos appellemus, ac si in utrisque tribum Levi et quasi Levitas agnoscamus.
   Habemus etiam in eodem libro votum illud maximum et consecrationem Nazaraeorum Domini aeque feminis sicut et viris esse institutum, ipso ad Moysen Domino sic dicente: Loquere ad filios Israel, et dices ad eos: Vir, sive mulier, cum fecerint votum ut sanctificentur et se voluerint Domino consecrare, vino et omni quod inebriare potest abstinebunt. Acetum ex vino, et ex qualibet alia potione et quidquid de uva exprimitur non bibent. Uvas recentes siccasque non comedent. Cunctis diebus quibus ex voto Domino consecrantur, quidquid ex vinea est, ab uva passa usque ad acinum, non comedent omni tempore separationis suae . . .

Huius quidem religionis illas fuisse arbitror excubantes ad ostium tabernaculi, de quarum speculis Moyses vas composuit in quo lavarentur Aaron et filii eius, sicut scriptum est: Posuit Moyses labrum aeneum in quo lavarentur Aaron et filii eius; quod fecit de speculis mulierum quae excubabant ad ostium taber­naculi. Diligenter magnae devotionis earum fervor describitur, quae clauso etiam tabernaculo foribus eius adhaerentes sanctarum vigiliarum excubias celebrabant, noctem etiam ipsam in orationibus ducentes et ab obsequio divino viris quiescentibus non vacantes. Quod vero clausum eis tabernaculum memoratur, vita poenitentium congrue designatur, qui ut se durius poenitentiae lamentis afficiant a ceteris segregantur. Quae profecto vita specialiter monasticae professionis esse perhibetur, cuius videlicet ordo nihil aliud, esse dicitur quam quaedam parcioris poenitentiae forma. Tabernaculum vero ad cuius ostium excubabant illud est mystice intelligendum, de quo ad Hebraeos Apostolus scribit: Habemus altare de quo non habent edere hi qui tabernaculo deserviunt; id est, quo participare digni non sunt qui corpori suo, in quo hic quasi in castris ministrant, voluptuosum impendunt obsequium. Ostium vero tabernaculi finis est vitae praesentis, quando hinc anima exit de corpore et futuram ingreditur vitam. Ad hoc ostium excubant qui de exitu huius vitae et introitu futurae solliciti sunt, et sic poenitendo disponunt hunc exitum ut illum mereantur introitum. De hoc quidem quotidiano introitu et exitu sanctae Ecclesiae ilia est oratio Psalmistae: Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et exitum tuum. Tunc enim simul introitum et exitum nostrum custodit, cum nos hinc exeuntes et iam per poenitentiam purgatos illuc statim introducit. Bene autem prius introitum quam exitum nominavit, non tam videlicet ordinem quam dignitatem attendens, cum hic exitus vitae mortalis in dolore sit, ille vero introitus aeternae summa sit exsultatio. Specula vero earum opera sunt exteriora ex quibus animae turpitudo vel decor diiudicatur, sicut ex speculo corporali qualitas humanae faciei. Ex istis earum speculis vas componitur in quo se abluant Aaron et filii eius, quando sanctarum feminarum opera et tanta infirmi sexus in Deo constantia pontificum et presbyterorum negligentiam vehementer increpant, et ad compunctionis lacrymas praecipue movent. Et si. prout oportet ipsi earum sollicitudinem gerant, haec ipsarum opera peccatis illorum veniam per quam abluantur praeparant- Ex his profecto speculis vas sibi compunctionis beatus parabat Gregorius, cum sanctarum virtutem feminarum et infirmi sexus in martyrio victoriam admirans et ingemiscens quaerebat:

Quid barbati dicturi sint viri, cum tanta pro Christo delicatae puellae sustineant et tanto agone sexus fragilis triumphet ut frequentius ipsum gemina virginitatis et martyrii corona pollere noverimus?

Ad has quidem, ut dictum est, ad ostium tabernaculi excubantes et quae iam quasi Nazareae Domini suam ei viduitatem consecraverant beatam illam Annam pertinere non ambigo, quae singularem Domini Nazaraeum Dominum Iesum Christum in templo cum sancto Simeone pariter meruit suscipere et, ut plusquam propheta fieret, ipsum eadem hora qua Simeon per Spiritum agnoscere et praesentem demonstrare ac publice praedicare.
Cuius quidem laudem evangelista diligentius prosecutus ait: Et erat Anna prophetissa, filia Phanuel, de tribu Aser. Haec processerat in diebus multis, et vixerat cum viro suo annis septem a virginitate sua. Et haec vidua erat usque ad annos octoginta quatuor, quae non discedebat de templo ieiuniis et obsecrationibus serviens nocte ac die. Et haec, ipsa hora superveniens, confitebatur Domino et loquebatur omnibus qui exspectabant redemptionem Hierusalem. Nota singula quae dicuntur et perpende quam studiosus in huius viduae laude fuerit evangelista et quantis praeconiis excellentiam eius extulerit. Cuius quidem prophetiae gratiam quam habere solita erat, et parentem eius, et tribum, et post septem annos quos cum viro sustinuerat longaevum sanctae viduitatis tempus quo se Domino mancipaverat, et assiduitatem eius in templo, et ieiuniorum et orationum instantiam, et confessionem laudis, quas grates Domino referebat, et publicam eius praedicationem de promisso et nato Salvatore diligenter  expressit. Et Simeonem quidem iam superius evangelista de iustitia non de prophetia commendaverat, nec in eo tantae continentiae vel abstinentiae virtutem, nec divini sollicitudinem obsequii fuisse memoravit, nec de eius ad alios praedicatione quidquam adiecit.
Huius quoque professionis atque propositi illae sunt verae viduae de quibus ad Timotheum scribens Apostolus ait: Viduas honora, quae vere viduae sunt. Item: Quae autem vere vidua est et desolata speret in Deum et instet obsecrationibus et orationibus nocte ac die . . . Et hoc praecipe ut irreprehensibiles sint. Et iterum: Si quis fidelis habet viduas, subministret illis, et non gravetur ecclesia, ut his quae vere viduae sunt sufficiat. Veras quippe viduas dicit quae viduitatem suam secundis nuptiis non dehonestaverunt, vel quae devotione magis quam necessitate sic perseverantes Domino se dicarunt. Desolatas dicit quae sic omnibus abrenuntiant ut nullum terreni solatii subsidium retineant, vel qui earum curam agant non habent. Quas quidem et honorandas esse praecipit et de stipendiis Ecclesiae censet sustentari tamquam de propriis redditibus sponsi earum Christi.
Ex quibus etiam quales ad diaconatus ministerium sint eligendse diligenter describit dicens: Vidua eligatur non minus sexaginta annorum, quae fuerit unius viri uxor, in operibus bonis testimonium habens, si filios educavit, si hospitio suscepit, si sanctorum pedes lavit, si tribulationem patientibus subministravit, si omne opus bonum consecuta est. Adolescentiores autem viduas devita. Quod quidem beatus exponens Hieronymus:  Devita, inquit, <aliis> in ministerio diaconatus praeponere ne malum pro bono detur exemplum. Si videlicet iuniores ad hoc eligantur, quae ad tentationem proniores et natura leviores, nec per experientiam longaevae aetatis providae, malum exemplum his praebeant quibus maxime bonum dare debuerant. Quod quidem malum exemplum in iunioribus viduis, quia iam Apostolus certis didicerat experimentis, aperte profitetur, et consilium insuper adversum hoc praebet cum praemisisset: Adolescentiores autem viduas devita. Causam huius rei et consilii sui medicamentum statim apposuit, dicens: Cum enim luxuriatae fuerint in Christo, nubere volunt, habentes damnationem, quia primam fidem irritam fecerunt. Simul autem et otiosae discunt circumire domos; non solum oticsae, sed et verbosae, et curiosae, loquentes quae non oportet. Volo ergo iuniores nubere, filios procreare, matresfamilias esse,nullam occasionem dare adversario maledicti gratia. Iam enim quaedam conversae sunt retro Satanam.
Hanc quoque Apostoli providentiam, de diaconissis scilicet eligendis, beatus Gregorius secutus, Maximo Syracusano episcopo scribit his verbis:

Iuvenculas abbatissas vehementissime prohibemus. Nullum igitur episcopum fraternitas tua nisi sexagenariam virginem, cuius vita hoc atque mores exegerint, velare permittat.

Abbatissas quippe quas nunc dicimus antiquitus diaconissas vocabant. quasi ministeriales potius quam matres. Diaconus quippe minister interpretarur. et diaconissas ab administratione potius quam praelatione nuncupandas esse censebant, secundum quod ipse Dominus tam exemplis quam verbis instituit, dicens: Qui maior est vestrum erit minister vester. Et iterum: Numquid est victor cui recumbit an qui ministrat? Ego autem in medio vestrum sum, sicut qui ministret, et alibi: Sicut Filius hominis non venit ministrari, sed ministrare. Unde et Hieronymus hoc ipsum nomen abbatis, quo iam gloriari multos noverat, ex ipsa Domini auctoritate non mediocriter ausus est arguere. Qui videlicet eum locum exponens quo scriptum est in epistola ad Galatas: Clamantes: Abba Pater,

Abba, inquit, Hebraicum est, hoc ipsum significans quod pater . . . Cum autem Abba pater Hebraeo Syroque sermone dicatur, et Dominus in Evangelio praecipit nullum patrem vocandum esse nisi Deum, nescio cua licentia in monasteriis vel vocemus hoc nomine alios, vel vocari nos acquiescamus. Et certe ipse praecepit hoc, qui dixerat non esse iurandum: si non iuramus, nec patrem quempiam nominemus. Si de patre interpretabimur aliter, et de iurando aliter sentire cogemur.

 Ex his profesto diaconissis Phoeben illa fuisse constat quam Apostolus Romanis diligenter commendans et pro ea exorans ait:  Commendo autem vobis Phoeben sororem nostram, quae est in ministerio Ecclesiae; quae est Cenchris, ut eam, suscipiatis in Domino digne sanctis, et assistatis ei in quocunque negotio vestri indiguerit; etenim ipsa quoque astitit multis, et mihi ipsi. Quem quidem locum tam. Cassiodorus quam Claudius exponentes ipsam illius Ecclesiae diaconissam fuisse profitentur.

 

Historical context:

This letter answers part of Heloise’s request, see ep.6 (Epistolae 902.html), for a history of women’s monasticism. Abelard emphasizes the roles women played in the Old and New Testament — including anointing Christ as priest and king — and in early Christianity, arguing Christ’s authority for the monastic vocation of women and identifying modern abbesses with early deaconesses. He often repeats Heloise’s description of women as the weaker sex, but usually to show what they are capable of. This is a very long letter from which these are excerpts and summary [the summaries in brackets].

Scholarly notes:

(1) Abelard is presumably alluding to the tradition that made Mary Magdalene, conflated with Mary the sister of Martha, a prostitute. He also conflates Mary with the sinner who washed Christ’s feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.
(2)In a later passage Abelard puts it even more strongly: "as we call Mary Magdalene apostle of the apostles," Muckle, p.271.

Printed source:

Muckle, "The letter of Heloise on Religious Life and Abelard’s First Reply," MS 17 (1955), ep.6, p.253-81. Translation by Mary Martin McLaughlin and Bonnie Wheeler, The Letters of Heloise and Abelard, ed. Bonnie Wheeler (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 99-131, reprinted here with the generous permission of the editor.