To Furia
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You beg and implore me in your letter to write to you — or rather write back to you — what mode of life you ought to adopt to preserve the crown of widowhood and to keep your reputation for chastity unsullied. My mind rejoices, my reins exult, and my heart is glad that you desire to be after marriage what your mother Titiana of holy memory was for a long time in marriage. Her prayers and supplications are heard. She has succeeded in winning afresh in her only daughter that which she herself when living possessed. It is a high privilege of your family that from the time of Camillus few or none of your house are described as contracting second marriages. Therefore it will not redound so much to your praise if you continue a widow as to your shame if being a Christian you fail to keep what heathen women have jealously guarded for so many centuries.
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I say nothing of Paula and Eustochium, the fairest flowers of your stock; for, as my object is to exhort you, I do not wish it to appear that I am praising them. Blæsilla too I pass over who following her husband — your brother — to the grave, fulfilled in a short time of life a long time of virtue. Would that men would imitate the laudable examples of women, and that wrinkled old age would pay at last what youth gladly offers at first! In saying this I am putting my hand into the fire deliberately and with my eyes open. Men will knit their brows and shake their clenched fists at me;
In swelling tones will angry Chremes rave.
The leaders will rise as one man against my epistle; the mob of patricians will thunder at me. They will cry out that I am a sorcerer and a seducer; and that I should be transported to the ends of the earth. They may add, if they will, the title of Samaritan; for in it I shall but recognize a name given to my Lord. But one thing is certain. I do not sever the daughter from the mother, I do not use the words of the gospel: let the dead bury their dead. For whosoever believes in Christ is alive; and he who believes in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked.
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A truce to the calumnies which the malice of backbiters continually fastens upon all who call themselves Christians to keep them through fear of shame from aspiring to virtue. Except by letter we have no knowledge of each other; and where there is no knowledge after the flesh, there can be no motive for intercourse save a religious one. Honour your father, the commandment says, but only if he does not separate you from your true Father. Recognize the tie of blood but only so long as your parent recognizes his Creator. Should he fail to do so, David will sing to you: hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear; forget also your own people and your father’s house. So shall the king greatly desire your beauty, for he is your Lord. Great is the prize offered for the forgetting of a parent, the king shall desire your beauty. You have heard, you have considered, you have inclined your ear, you have forgotten your people and your father’s house; therefore the king shall desire your beauty and shall say to you:— you are all fair, my love; there is no spot in you. What can be fairer than a soul which is called the daughter of God, and which seeks for herself no outward adorning. She believes in Christ, and, dowered with this hope of greatness makes her way to her spouse; for Christ is at once her bridegroom and her Lord.
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What troubles matrimony involves you have learned in the marriage state itself; you have been surfeited with quails’ flesh even to loathing; your mouth has been filled with the gall of bitterness; you have expelled the indigestible and unwholesome food; you have relieved a heaving stomach. Why will you again swallow what has disagreed with you? The dog is turned to his own vomit again and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. Even brute beasts and flying birds do not fall into the same snares twice. Do you fear extinction for the line of Camillus if you do not present your father with some little fellow to crawl upon his breast and slobber his neck? As if all who marry have children! And as if when they do come, they always resemble their forefathers! Did Cicero’s son exhibit his father’s eloquence? Had your own Cornelia, pattern at once of chastity and of fruitfulness, cause to rejoice that she was mother of her Gracchi? It is ridiculous to expect as certain the offspring which many, as you can see, have not got, while others who have had it have lost it again. To whom then are you to leave your great riches? To Christ who cannot die. Whom shall you make your heir? The same who is already your Lord. Your father will be sorry but Christ will be glad; your family will grieve but the angels will rejoice with you. Let your father do what he likes with what is his own. You are not his to whom you have been born, but His to whom you have been born again, and who has purchased you at a great price with His own blood.
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Beware of nurses and waiting maids and similar venomous creatures who try to satisfy their greed by sucking your blood. They advise you to do not what is best for you but what is best for them. They are for ever dinning into your ears Virgil’s lines:—