Archebius Pays His Mother’s Debt

I think it worthwhile to hand down another loving act of the same man, so that the monks of our land may be taught, by the example of one and the same man, to keep not only a strict self-control but also the most genuine affection of love. He came from a family of good standing, and while still a child he scorned the love of this world and of his relatives and fled to the monastery nearly four miles from the town we mentioned. There he spent his whole life in such a way that never once in fifty years did he enter or see the village he had come from, or even look on the face of any woman, not even his own mother. [a]

Meanwhile his father died and left a debt of a hundred solidi. He himself was entirely free from all trouble, since he had been disinherited of all his father’s property. Yet he found that his mother was being sorely harassed by the creditors. Then, out of a sense of duty, he somewhat moderated that gospel strictness by which, earlier, while his parents were prosperous, he had not acknowledged that he had a father or mother on earth. He acknowledged that he had a mother and hurried to relieve her in her distress, without relaxing anything of the strict life he had set himself. Staying within the enclosure of the monastery, he asked that his usual task of work be tripled. There, toiling night and day alike for a whole year, he paid the creditors the full amount of the debt, earned by his toil and labor, and freed his mother from all trouble and anxiety. He rid her of the burden of the debt in such a way that he let none of the strictness he had set himself be lessened on the plea of a duty that could not be avoided. So he kept his usual strict ways without ever denying his mother’s heart the work that duty demanded. Though he had once disregarded her for the love of Christ, he now acknowledged her again out of a sense of duty.