Letter 3: Caesarius, bishop, to the beloved clergy and faithful of the church in his care.

O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! And who has known his mind (Romans 11:33)? For who could have supposed, in the days of your youth, O lady venerable to me indeed in your purity and your merits, yet by rank and degree a daughter to me in Christ, that when you were in the convent of holy virgins, gathered into a spiritual choir, intent with zeal upon the learning of the divine Scriptures, and loved me then as though I were a part of your own soul, me a young man and a fellow of no great character, who wandered through the precipices of pleasures and wantonness and hastened, amid most wretched windings, to be plunged in a secret downfall for the sake of temporal happiness, a man whose name you knew only by hearing and whose face you knew not at all, that the dispensation of almighty God held us predestined to this office, namely that he would hand over to us his household to be governed? And this, at least, in such an order: that you should serve in the workshop of this Church, according to the oracle of the divine precept. For he says: If you separate the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth (Jeremiah 15:19). Like a most skillful money-changer, among those who keep impressed upon themselves the image of the eternal King, you are to set apart, by a shrewd and discerning division, those who stain his coin against conscience with a counterfeit and sordid key; for you are no untrained novice in these holy and consecrated ministries, but from your very cradle, through the years of infancy and adolescence and from your youth onward, you have exercised your life in the disciplines of the rule, in which you learned the norm of living and obtained an abundant store of doctrine. But I, who through hindering sloth have not attained the prerogative of knowledge, and who see myself far removed from the abstinence which the divine condescension has brought into you, and entangled in earthly necessities, am rightly reproached by the wise as a chatterer rather than as one who speaks anything rightly, as the unpolished matter of this very discourse itself shows. Yet though I am dull and defiled with the mud of earthly labor, still, remembering my former love, it cannot be believed what solicitude and what fear I have on your account, now that you have been allotted the office which you now hold. Therefore, as great as was my devotion that you should undertake it in due order according to God and bear it without stain, so much the more sharply do I fear lest perhaps either the divine gaze or human opinion should find in you anything open to reproach; lest there be found in you anything by which those who wish to reproach you may seem justly to tear you, or those who have desired to imitate you may go astray. This you will be able to avoid all the more reverently if you always set the judgment from above before the eyes of your heart. Hear me then, O sweetest virgin of Christ, sister and daughter: however much you always desire to be occupied in spiritual studies, yet for your sister's sake external affairs too must sometimes be settled by you. You must therefore take the utmost care so to conduct temporal matters as for the time being, and yet always to cleave more tenaciously to spiritual things in devotion and love, so that when you have dispatched spiritual affairs the more quickly, you may at once run back to prayer or reading as to a mother's bosom. For you ought to wish that, having cast off the care of the world, you may always think upon the service of Christ, because of that saying: No one fighting for God, he says, entangles himself in worldly affairs (2 Timothy 2:4). Consider without ceasing that you are set up as the lamp of this Church, not to be hidden under a bushel, but placed upon a lampstand, that you may impart to all who dwell in this house the light of good works by your example, because of that saying: In all things, he says, show yourself an example of good works (Titus 2:7); and that your life, like a winged creature, may always fly up on high through desire, resound through your word, and shine through your example. But when you set yourself to announce the word of God to the sisters, or when the necessity of disputing presses upon you for the benefit of souls and for keeping the tenor of the rule, first weigh with cautious consideration that what you utter with your mouth you fulfill in deeds, that what you preach to others you display in your works; that is, that you may first feel upon your own shoulders and neck whether you are loading the necks of the sisters with heavy burdens or light ones. For example, if it should please you to impose a fast beyond the daily one, or abstinence beyond the customary, or, as often happens, to chant more psalms than usual in the gathering for prayer. Be the first found in church and the last to leave; be the first to take up labors and the last to lay them down; and in the daily nourishment of the body and the common food, be equal with those with whom you share an equal seat at table; so that you who sit at one table may be refreshed by one and equal food; delight in the same flavors of the dishes as the sisters do, and let the common servers of dishes or the cupbearers set out or hand to you food and drink equal to theirs; and claim your primacy, which you hold first at the table, by being first in the virtue of frugality; so that the abstinence which your tongue preaches may be felt by the throat next to you or the stomach beside you, lest perhaps those under you, hearing, should say in their silent thoughts: Oh, how beautifully a full belly preaches abstinence to us, and bids us be content with the cheapest food and drink, while its own gullet is stuffed with choice foods and delightful cups and is belching! For that preaching about abstinence is acceptable which lips wan with fasting chant. And in all these and the rest, know that it befits you to walk first yourself along the paths of the narrow track by which you admonish your companions that they must go; to fulfill beforehand by deeds all the things that are to be done; so that afterward, like a beaten trumpet brought to sound by the stroke, you may break forth the more rightly in voice, because of that saying of the Lord: He who, he says, shall scandalize one of these little ones who believe in me (Matthew 18:6), and the rest. Among other things, you must keep watch with great caution that you love equally all in the monastery whose governance you have laid equally upon your neck; nor love one more and another less, but arrange all things in which there is opportunity with equal management, dispense them with equal moderation, impart to them an equal charity, and bestow what is necessary not on any particular ones through private love, but on all according to the merits of each. Do not give preference to her who pleases you by her face and appearance, nor to her whom you have known by sight, nor to her by whose more flattering compliance you have been charmed; but to her whom the love of Christ and a more religious life shall have shown forth. If the Lord shall deign to bestow some little substance upon the monastery in the course of things, let it be dispensed with the highest rule of equity, by an equal scale to all, as each shall have need; reverence being kept, nevertheless, for the elder women, those at least who have deserved to be pillars of the Church. Do not be more adorned in clothing than the rest: display yourself not in those things which the malice of men [text uncertain], but in those things which the devil can envy; so that instead of adornment of garments you may be adorned in conduct and character; and let divine reading season all these things. For it behooves you, I fear, on account of certain persons, to have at times a knife at the throat, to carry a cautery on the tongue, to bear a rod and a staff in your hand; that by the knife you may cut away vices, by the cautery bring what is cut back to health, by the discipline of the rod correct, and by the staff support those who have been disciplined. But if you impose a penance on anyone for her debts, you must take care that, when you see her bowed and bent low under the burden imposed by you, you imitate the diligence of the ant, according to the precept of the most wise Solomon, and put your own shoulder under her spiritual burden, that midway on her journey you may meet and lift up or support those who are laden; and so admonish and instruct each one in whatever negligences or particular faults, that from their salvation eternal glory may be presented to you by Christ the Lord. But whenever you are summoned to converse with seculars, and it is necessary to go, first arm your forehead with the trophy of the cross, redouble upon your breast the standard of Christ, that Christ may deign to accompany his little maiden; yet always covered with virginal modesty, mindful of blessed Mary, who, having spoken very few words with the angel, afterward leaped forth with Elizabeth into song and the praises of God. And when after this you come to them with the constancy of so great a decorum, do not yourself even put forward the conversation; so that those who see you may give thanks to Christ the Lord, who has deigned to provide such a mother for his household. Your outward going forth should be no less reasonable than rare. Let your conversation with them always be mingled with gravity and sweetness, that sweetness, namely, which proceeds from holy and pure love; let it always be restrained and interwoven with modesty, as befits a virgin of Christ. Likewise, lest by being everywhere silent you incur the mark of pride or of folly; but speak only so much as the opportunity of the matter and the time requires; so that whoever it may be, on departing, may desire you, or to hear your speech, which the gravity of your character, the sweetness of affection, and the fewness of words adorn. But if anything be asked of them [of you], which you decide to grant, grant it with a cheerful face. But if it is not fitting that something be granted, soften their petition at least by the courtesy of your speech. Let many know your name, let as many as you are able feel your benefits; let few know your face. And whenever you must confer privately with the steward on account of the necessity of the monastery, do it with two, or at least with three chosen sisters; or if some more secret business arises, converse at least in an open place with others looking on: because the reputation of good repute, like the safeguarding of a perfect life, is necessary for you; and human detraction is then first to be despised, when Christ is the cause. But whenever something such must be done that, bound by ambiguity, to whatever side you turn you proceed into uncertainty, as if entangled in a syllogism, if you do it, then at last turn yourself to the lesser danger, which you may more easily steer back toward the good; and not only in doubtful matters, but let your every action be for God's sake, your speech be about God, your thought be toward God; and except for vices, which are owed not compassion but rectitude, I desire you to be compassionate to all, gracious to all, kind to all, affectionate to all, animated toward all good; just as Paul adorned the virgin of Christ, that you may be holy in body and spirit (1 Corinthians 7:34); your very Bridegroom and Lord governing your mind and ordering all your ways, who in the perfect Trinity lives and reigns, God, world without end. Amen.

O profundum divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei! et quis cognovit sensum ejus (Rom. XI, 33)? Quis enim existimare potest in diebus adolescentiae tuae, o venerabilis mihi integritate quidem et meritis domina, sed ordine ac gradibus in Christo filia, cum in coenobio sanctarum virginum conferta choro spiritali, studio et divinarum Scripturarum eruditionibus intenta, me tunc quasi partem animae tuae diligeres, hominem juvenem et non magnae indolis virum, qui per abrupta voluptatum lasciviamque vagabatur, ac peraerumnosis anfractibus, propter laetitiam scilicet temporalis felicitatis, in clandestino jactu festinabat immergi, cujus praeterea nomen tantum auditu noverat, vultu penitus ignorabat, quod ad hoc nos officium dispensatio omnipotentis Dei praedestinatos haberet, scilicet ut nobis familiam suam traderet gubernandam, isto duntaxat ordine, ut in officina hujus Ecclesiae ministrares, secundum divini praecepti oraculum. Si, inquit, separaveris pretiosum a vili, quasi os meum eris (Jer. XV, 29). Velut solertissima trapezita inter eos qui aeterni Regis in se impressa custodiunt, ut eos quoniam denarium ejus contra conscientiam cum clave adulterina sorde commaculant, sagaci discretaque divisione secernas: quippe quae non rudis vel neophyta haec sacra dicata ministeria, sed ab ipsis pene cunabulis per annos infantiae atque adolescentiae, a juventute usque studiis regularibus exercuisti vitam, in quibus vivendi didicisti normam, et doctrinae copiam affatim es consecuta. Ego vero qui scientiae praerogativam, praepediente segnitia, assecutus non sum, et ab abstinentia quam in te intulit divina dignatio procul distare me video et terrenis necessitatibus implicari. Unde garrulus potius a sapientibus quam recte aliquid loquens jure reprehendor, sicut etiam ipsius dictionis designat impolita materies. Sed licet stolidus et terreni operis luto foedatus, prisci tamen amoris recordans, credi non potest, postquam hoc quod nunc habes officium sortita fuisti, qualem de te habeam sollicitudinem vel timorem. Unde quantam devotionem habui, ut illud secundum Deum ordinate susciperes, et absque macula bajulares; tanto acrius time, ne forsitan aut divinus te intuitus aut humana reprehendat opinio quod juxta te pateat reprehensioni; nec inveniatur in te, ut qui reprehendere volunt, digne lacerare videantur, aut qui imitari appetierint, delinquant: quod ita augustius poteris evitare, si supernum semper judicium ante cordis oculos ponas. Audi ergo me, o dulcissima virgo Christi, soror ac filia: tu quantumcunque semper in studiis spiritalibus occupari desideras, propter sororem tamen, necessaria aliquando etiam exteriora tibi erunt negotia dirimenda. Curandum ergo tibi summopere est, ut sic temporalia quasi pro tempore agas, ac semper tenacius in spiritalibus devotione et amore inhaereas, ut cum spiritalia citius dispensaveris, ad orationem illico vel lectionem quasi ad matris sinum recurras. Optare quippe debes ut, abjecta sollicitudine mundi, semper cogites de servitio Christi, propter illud: Nemo militans, inquit, Deo implicat se negotiis saecularibus (II Tim. II). Cogita sine intermissione, quia hujus Ecclesiae es instituta lucerna, non occultanda sub modio, sed super candelabrum posita, ut omnibus qui hanc domum habitant lumen bonorum operum exemplis impertias propter illud: In omnibus, inquit, temetipsum praebe exemplum bonorum operum (Tit. II), vitaque tua velut pennatum animal ad alta semper per desiderium evolet, per verbum resonet, luceat per exemplum. Cum vero ad annuntiandum verbum Dei te sororibus affectaveris, seu propter utilitatem animarum tenoremque regulae custodiendum necessitas incubuerit altercandi, prius cauta consideratione pensa, ut quod ore promis, factis impleas; ut quod aliis praedicas, operibus praebeas: scilicet ut in tuis humeris atque cervicibus prius sentias utrum gravibus an levibus oneribus colla sororum onustes; verbi gratia, si jejunium super quotidianum, vel abstinentiam extra consuetudinariam, nec non, ut assolet, plus solito in synaxi psalmos placuerit decantare. Prior in ecclesia inveniaris, postrema exeas; prima suscipias labores, solvas posterior; et in quotidiano corporis alimento atque communi cibo par sis bis cum quibus pari uteris in mensa consessu; ut quae ad unam sedetis mensam, unum vos parque reficiat alimentum; iisdem et tu quibus et sorores ferculorum saporibus delectare, et aequalia vobis cibaria potionesque exhibeant vel porrigant communes discoferae vel pincernae; primatumque tuum, quem prior ad mensam tenes, prima ad virtutem parcimoniae vindices; ut abstinentiam quam lingua praedicat, proximae fauces vel vicinus stomachus sentiat, ne forsitan subditae audientes tacitis cogitationibus dicant: O quam pulchre nobis abstinentiam praedicat plenus venter, et contentas nos jubet esse vilissimis cibis ac poculis accuratis cibis poculisque delectabilibus refertum guttur et eructans! Illa enim de abstinentia praedicatio acceptabilis est, quam lurida jejuniis ora decantant. Et in his omnibus caeterisque hoc tibi noveris convenire, ut angusti callis itinera, per quae socias admones gradiendum, prior ipsa gradiaris; ut omnia quae agenda sunt, ante factis impleas; ut postmodum velut ductilis tuba ex percussione perducta rectius erumpas in voce, propter illud dominicum: Qui, inquit, scandalizaverit unum de pusillis istis qui in me credunt (Matth. XVIII), et reliqua. Inter caetera, cum magna tibi cautela custodiendum est ut omnes in monasterio, quarum gubernacula aequaliter tuis imposuisti cervicibus, aequaliter diligas; neve unam plus, minus aliam ames: sed cuncta quae sunt, in quibus possibilitas exstat, aequo moderamine disponas, parique moderatione dispenses, ac parem eis charitatem impertias, et non quibuslibet per privatum amorem, sed cunctis secundum merita singularum quae sunt necessaria largiaris. Non quae tibi vultu intuituque placuerit, non quam tibi ad oculum cognoveris, vel cujus blandiori fueris obsequio delinita; sed quam amor Christi et religiosior demonstraverit vita, praeponas. Si quam Dominus substantiolam contextu largiri dignatus in monasterio fuerit, cum summa aequitatis linea, aequa omnibus lance, prout cuique opus fuerit, dispensetur; servata tamen senioribus veneratione, his duntaxat quae Ecclesiae columnae esse meruerunt. Non sis vestibus ornatior caeteris: exhibe non quae malitia hominum ( Sic ), sed in his quae diabolus invidere potest; ut pro ornatu vestium sis ornata conversatione ac moribus; et haec omnia lectio divina condiat. Oportet enim te, ut vereor, propter quasdam, cultrum nonnunquam habere in gutture, cauterium in lingua gestare, virgam tibi et baculum in manu ferre; ut per cultrum deseces vitia, per cauterium vero ad sanitatem secta reducas; per virgae disciplinam corrigas, per baculum vero disciplinatas sustentes. Si cui vero pro suis debitis poenitentiam imposueris, observandum ut cum eam sub fasce a te imposito inclinari incurvarique conspexeris, imiteris formicae solertiam, secundum praeceptum sapientissimi Salomonis, et humerum tuum oneri ejus spiritali supponas, ut medio ejus itinere obviam oneratas subleves vel sustentes; et sic singulas quibusque negligentiis aut culpis specialibus admoneas et instruas, ut de earum salute a Christo Domino tibi aeterna gloria repraesentetur. Si quando vero cum saecularibus ad colloquendum fueris evocata, et ire necesse fuerit, prius arma frontem tropaeo crucis, vexillo Christi pectus ingemina, ut cum sua virguncula Christus comitari dignetur: semper tamen virginali pudore cooperta, memor beatae Mariae, quae cum angelo paucissimis collocuta verbis, cum Elisabeth postmodum in carmen et laudes Dei decantando prosilivit. Cumque post haec ad eos veneris cum tantae honestatis constantia, nec ipsa vel locutionem praeponas; ut qui te viderint, Christo Domino gratias agant, qui talem familiae suae providere dignatus est matrem. Ipsa vero processio tua exterior rationabilis non minus debet esse quam rara. Confabulatio vero tua cum eis semper sit mixta gravitate et dulcedine, illa scilicet quae de sancto ac puro amore procedit; coercenda semper sit et verecundiae intermiscenda, sicut Christi virginem decet. Item ut ne usquequaque tacens, aut superbiae aut stultitiae notam incurras; sed tantum loquaris, quantum opportunitas flagitat rei ac temporis; ut abscedens, quisquis ille fuerit, desideret te quam se ( Sic ), vel loquelam tuam audire, quam ornat morum gravitas, affectus dulcedinis et paucitas locutionis. Si quid vero ab eis petitum fuerit, quod praestare deliberes, cum vultu hilari praesta. Si quid vero praestari non convenit, petitionem eorum honestate saltem sermonis mollifica. Nomen tuum plures noverint, beneficia tua in quantum praevales plures sentiant; vultum rari cognoscant. Si quando autem tibi pro necessitate monasterii seorsim cum provisore fuerit colloquendum, cum duabus vel certe cum tribus electis sororibus facito; aut si negotium secretius supervenerit, aliis saltem videntibus loco patulo colloquaris: quia opinio bonae famae, sicut etiam perfectae vitae custodia, tibi necessaria est; et tunc primum despicienda humana detractio, cum Christus in causa est. Si quando vero tale aliquid acciderit faciendum, ut ambiguitate constricta, quacunque parte divertas, quasi syllogismo innexa, in incertum incedas, si feceris, tunc demum ad minus te converte periculum, quod facilius ad bonum gubernando retorqueas; et non solum de dubiis, sed omnis tua actio sit propter Deum, sermo de Deo, cogitatio in Deum, et exceptis vitiis quibus non compassio, sed rectitudo debetur, omnibus te cupio esse compassibilem, omnibus gratam, omnibus piam, omnibus affectuosam, cunctis bonis animatam; quemadmodum Paulus Christi virginem decoravit, ut sis sancta corpore et spiritu (I Cor. VII); ipso sponso et Domino tuo mentem tuam regente, et cunctas vias tuas disponente, qui in Trinitate perfecta vivit et regnat Deus in saecula saeculorum. Amen. NOTA. (Videsis Epistolas: Ruricii ad Caesarium, Patrologiae tom. LVIII, coll. 108 , 111 ; Caesarii ad Symmachum papam et hujus ad Caesarium, tom. LXII, coll. 53 , 54 ; Bonifacii II ad Caesarium, tom. LXV, col. 31 , Aviti Viennensis ad Caesarium, tom. LIX, col. 229 ; Joannis II ad Caesarium, tom. LXVI, col. 25 ; et Agapeti I ad Caesarium, tom. LXVI, coll. 45 , 46 Categoria:Patrologiae Cursus Completus