The Virgins and the Deacon

Cyprian, Caecilius, Victor, Sedatus, and Tertullus, together with the elders who were present with them, to Pomponius their brother: greetings.

We have read your letter, dearest brother, the one you sent by our brother Paconius. In it you ask us to write back and tell you what we think about those virgins who once made up their minds to stay as they were and to hold firmly to a life of self-control, and who have since been found to have shared a bed, lying side by side with men. One of the men, you say, is a deacon. And yet these same virgins, who have admitted that they slept with men, say that they are chaste. [d]

Since you have asked for our advice on this, know that we do not depart from the traditions of the Gospel and of the apostles. We take thought for our brothers and sisters steadily and firmly, and we uphold the discipline of the church by every way that is useful and safe. For the Lord says, “And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and they will feed you with discipline.” And again it is written, “Whoever despises discipline is wretched.” In the Psalms, too, the Holy Spirit warns us and instructs us: “Take hold of discipline, or the Lord may grow angry and you perish from the right way, when his anger burns up quickly against you.”

So in the first place, dearest brother, nothing ought to be sought after more eagerly, by the overseers and by the people alike, than this: that we who fear God should keep his commands with every care for discipline, and should not let our brothers and sisters wander off and live by their own whim and craving. We should faithfully take thought for the life of each one, and not allow virgins to live with men — I do not say to sleep together, but to live together. Their sex is the weaker, and their age is still a dangerous one; they ought to be reined in on every side and guided by us, so that no opening is given to the devil, who lays traps for us and wants to rage over us, to do them harm. The apostle says as much: “Do not give the devil a foothold.” [h]

A ship has to be watched carefully and brought out of dangerous water, so that it is not broken up on rocks and cliffs. Baggage has to be pulled out of a fire quickly, before the flames reach it and burn it up. No one who stands near danger is safe for long, and no servant of God will be able to get away from the devil once he has tangled himself in the devil’s nets. We must step in at once in cases like these, so that they can be separated while they can still be separated innocent. Before long our stepping in will not be able to separate them at all, once a thoroughly guilty conscience has joined them together.

And what a number of serious troubles we have watched come out of this! What a crowd of virgins we have seen ruined by unlawful and dangerous pairings of this kind, to our great grief of mind! But if they have faithfully given themselves to Christ, let them keep on in modesty and chastity, with nothing said against them, and so wait with courage and steadiness for the reward of virginity. And if they are unwilling or unable to keep on, it is better for them to marry than to fall into the fire through their crimes. Certainly they are not to become a stumbling block to their brothers and sisters, since it is written, “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat again as long as the world stands, so that I do not make my brother stumble.”

And let no one think she has a defense in this — that she can be examined and proved to be a virgin. The hands and the eyes of midwives are often deceived. And even if she is found to be a virgin in the one part where a woman can be shown to be one, she may still have sinned in some other part of her body, which may be corrupted and yet cannot be examined. Certainly the mere lying together, the mere holding of each other, the very talking together, the act of kissing, the shameful and filthy sleep of two people lying side by side — how much dishonor and crime all of it confesses! [l]

If a husband comes upon his wife and sees her lying with another man, is he not angry and raging? Does the heat of his rage not perhaps put a sword into his hand? Then what will Christ, our Lord and Judge, think when he sees his own virgin, given to him and set apart for his holiness, lying with another? How indignant and angry he is, and what penalties he threatens against unchaste unions like these! We ought to use all our counsel to see to it, and to work at it, that every one of our brothers may escape his spiritual sword and the coming day of judgment.

And since everyone must keep discipline by every means, it is all the more right that overseers and deacons should take care of this, so that they may give others an example and a lesson in their way of life and their character. For how can they guide other people’s integrity and self-control, if the corruption and the teaching of sin begin with themselves?

And so, dearest brother, you acted wisely and firmly in cutting off from communion the deacon who has often stayed with a virgin, and the others as well who had made a habit of sleeping with virgins. But if they have repented of this unlawful lying together and have withdrawn from one another, let the virgins be carefully examined in the meantime by midwives. If they are found to be virgins, let them be received into communion and admitted to the church — but with this warning: that if they go back afterward to the same men, or live with the same men in one house or under one roof, they are to be thrown out under a heavier censure, and people like that are not to be received easily into the church again. But if any one of them is found to have been corrupted, let her repent fully, because the woman who is guilty of this crime is an adulteress — not, in fact, against a husband, but against Christ. And so, when a set time has been appointed and her confession has been made, let her return to the church afterward. [n]

But if they stubbornly keep on and will not separate from one another, let them know that with this shameless stubbornness of theirs they can never be admitted by us into the church, in case they begin to set others an example of going to ruin by their crimes. And let them not think that the way of life, or of salvation, is still open to them if they have refused to obey the overseers and the priests. For in Deuteronomy the Lord God says, “And the man who acts presumptuously, and will not listen to the priest or the judge, whoever he is in those days — that man will die, and all the people will hear and be afraid, and act presumptuously no more.”

God commanded that those who did not obey his priests should be killed, and those who did not listen to his judges, who were appointed for that time. In those days they were killed with a sword, while circumcision of the flesh was still in force. But now that circumcision has come to be of the spirit among God’s faithful servants, the proud and the defiant are killed with the sword of the Spirit, in that they are cast out of the church. For they cannot live outside it, since the house of God is one, and there can be no salvation for anyone except in the church. And the divine Scripture bears witness that the undisciplined perish, because they do not listen to healthy instruction or obey it. For it says, “An undisciplined man does not love the one who corrects him. But those who hate correction will be destroyed in disgrace.”

So work at this, dearest brother, that the undisciplined may not be destroyed and perish, and that as far as you can you may guide the brotherhood by your healthy advice and take counsel with each one with a view to his salvation. The way we go in by to reach life is tight and narrow, but the reward is splendid and great when we come into glory. Let those who have once made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven please God in everything, and not offend God’s priests, or the Lord’s church, by the scandal of their wickedness. [s]

And if for the present some of our brothers seem to be made sad by us, let us still stand by our healthy persuasion, knowing that an apostle also said, “Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?” But if they obey us, we have won our brothers, and by our appeal we have shaped them for salvation as well as for honor. And if some perverse people refuse to obey, let us follow the same apostle, who says, “If I pleased men, I would not be the servant of Christ.” If we cannot please some in such a way that they please Christ, then let us at least please Christ our Lord and God as far as we can, by keeping his commands.

I bid you a hearty farewell in the Lord, brother, beloved and much longed for.