Letter 22—To Eustochium on the Care of virginity
By Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus (Jerome)
XXIX
You should not wish to be seen too eloquent or to trifle with festive meters in lyric songs. Nor should you—a delicate woman—follow the degenerate drivel of the matrons, who now with clenched teeth, now with loose lips temper stammering voices in imperfect words, thinking everything rustic which is natural. So pleasing to them is even the adultery of the tongue. “For what is the commonality between light and darkness, what is the agreement between Christ and Belial?” What fellowship does Horace make with the Psalms, Vergil with the Gospels, and Cicero with the Apostle? Is not a brother tempted if he shall have seen you reclining in a pagan temple? Although “everything is clean to the clean and nothing can be rejected which has been secured through the act of thanks,” still likewise we ought not to drink the chalice of Christ and the chalice of demons. I shall tell you an account of my misfortune.
XXX
When many years ago I had taken myself from home, from my parents, from my sister, and from my kin and, what is more difficult than this, from the custom of more elegant food, on account of the kingdom of heaven and I went to Jerusalem to become a monk, I was not able to be without the library which I had amassed for myself at Rome through the greatest study and labor. Therefore, I wretchedly used to fast about to read Tully; after numerous night watches, after tears which recollections of past sins elicited in me from my inmost parts, Plautus was taken up in my hands. If ever, turned back to myself, I had begun to read the prophet, the uncultivated speech horrified, and because I did not see light with blind eyes, I did not think that it was the fault of the eyes but of the sun. While thus the ancient serpent mocked me, almost in the midst of Lent a fever filled the innermost parts of me, it invaded the exhausted body and without any respite—this may be incredible to say—so it consumed the unfortunate member so that I barely clung to my bones.
Meanwhile the obsequies were prepared and the vital heat of the soul beat in a body cooling everywhere in a glowing little breast, when suddenly taken I was dragged in the spirit to the tribunal of a judge, where there was so much light and so much brightness of light in the bystanders that thrown down into the ground, I dared not look upward. Asked my rank, I answered that I was a Christian: he who sat in judgment said, “You lie, you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian; ‘where your treasure is, there also is your heart.’” Immediately, I became silent and between blows—for he had ordered me struck—I was tormented more by the fires of conscience, reflecting on that verse: “In hell, however, who shall confess you?” Still, I began to shout and to say with a cry of pain, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, have mercy on me.” This cry was resounding between the scourges. Finally, prostrated on the knees to the president, those who stood attendance had begged that he bestow a pardon of youth, that he might provide a place of penitence for the error, to exact torment then, if I should read the books of pagan letters ever again. I, who wished to promise greater things, forced by such a dreadful moment, began to swear and imploring his name to say, “Lord, if ever I shall have secular books, if I shall read them, I have denied you.”
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