Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

Letter CCLXXXIX. 3251
Without address. Concerning an afflicted woman.
I consider it an equal mistake, to let the guilty go unpunished, and to exceed the proper
limits of punishment. I accordingly passed upon this man the sentence I considered it incumbent
on me to pass—excommunication from the Church. The sufferer I exhorted not
to avenge herself; but to leave to God the redressing of her wrongs. Thus if my admonitions
had possessed any weight, I should then have been obeyed, for the language I employed was
far more likely to ensure credit, than any letter to enforce compliance.
So, even after listening to her statements that contained matter sufficiently grave, I still
held my peace; and even now I am not sure that it becomes me to treat again of this same
question.
For, she says, I have foregone husband, children, all the enjoyments of life, for the attainment
of this single object, the favour of God, and good repute amongst men. Yet one day
the offender, an adept from boyhood in corrupting families, with the impudence habitual
to him, forced an entrance into my house; and thus within the bare limits of an interview
an acquaintanceship was formed. It was only owing to my ignorance of the man, and to
that timidity which comes from inexperience, that I hesitated openly to turn him out of
doors. Yet to such a pitch of impiety and insolence did he come, that he filled the whole
city with slanders, and publicly inveighed against me by affixing to the church doors libellous
placards. For this conduct, it is true, he incurred the displeasure of the law: but, nevertheless,
he returned to his slanderous attacks on me. Once more the market-place was filled with
his abuse, as well as the gymnasia, theatres, and houses whose congeniality of habits gained
him an admittance. Nor did his very extravagance lead men to recognise those virtues
wherein I was conspicuous, so universally had I been represented as being of an incontinent
disposition. In these calumnies, she goes on to say, some find a delight—such is the pleasure
men naturally feel in the disparagement of others; some profess to be pained, but shew no
sympathy; others believe the truth of these slanders; others again, having regard to the persistency
of his oaths, are undecided. But sympathy I have none. And now indeed I begin
to realise my loneliness, and bewail myself. I have no brother, friend, relation, no servant,
bond or free, in a word, no one whatever to share my grief. And yet, I think, I am more
than any one else an object of pity, in a city where the haters of wickedness are so few. They
bandy violence; but violence, though they fail to see it, moves in a circle, and in time will
overtake each one of them.
In such and still more appealing terms she told her tale, with countless tears, and so
departed. Nor did she altogether acquit me of blame; thinking that, when I ought to sym-
3251 Placed in the episcopate.
Without address. Concerning an afflicted woman.
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