Theonas Flees to a Monastery

But his wife was hard and would not agree, though he kept pressing her with pleas of this kind. She said that, being in the flower of her age, she could not altogether do without the comfort of a husband; and further, that if he deserted her and she fell into sin, the guilt would rather be his, as the one who had broken the bonds of marriage. To this he answered. For a long while he set before her the condition of human nature, which is so weak and uncertain that it would be dangerous for it to be mixed up any longer with fleshly desires and works. Then he added that it was not right for anyone to cut himself off from a virtue he had learned he ought by all means to hold fast to; that it was more dangerous to disregard goodness once it was found than to fail to love it before it was found; and further, that he was already involved in the guilt of a fall if, having found such great and heavenly blessings, he preferred earthly and lowly ones. He said too that the greatness of perfection was open to every age and to both sexes, and that all the members of the church were urged to scale the heights of heavenly goodness when the apostle said: “So run that you may obtain.” Those who were ready and eager for it should not hang back because of the delays of the slow and the dawdlers, since it is better for the sluggish to be urged on by those running ahead than for those who are doing their best to be held back by the lazy. Further, he said that he had resolved and made up his mind to renounce the world and to die to the world so that he might live to God. If he could not reach this happiness, to pass together with his wife into union with Christ, he would rather be saved even with the loss of one member, and enter the kingdom of heaven maimed, than be condemned with his body whole. [a]

But he also went on to speak as follows: “If Moses allowed wives to be divorced because of the hardness of their hearts, why should Christ not allow it for the desire of chastity? Especially since the same Lord spoke of those other affections, for fathers and mothers and children. The law, and he himself as well, required that all due regard be shown to fathers, mothers and children; yet for his name’s sake and for the desire of perfection he decreed that they should not simply be disregarded but actually hated. To these, I say, he joined the mention of wives too, saying: ‘And everyone who has left house, or brothers or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.’ So far, then, is he from allowing anything to be set against the perfection he proclaims, that he actually commands the ties to father and mother to be broken and disregarded for love of him, though according to the apostle this is the first commandment with a promise: ‘Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.’ And just as the word of the gospel condemns those who break the chains of marriage where there has been no sin of adultery, so it clearly promises a hundredfold reward to those who have cast off a fleshly yoke for love of Christ and the desire for chastity.

So if it can be brought about that you will listen to reason and turn with me to this most desirable choice, that we should serve the Lord together and escape the pains of hell, I will not refuse the affection of marriage; no, I will embrace it with a still greater love. For I acknowledge and honor the helper given to me by the word of the Lord. I do not refuse to be joined to her in an unbroken bond of love in Christ, nor do I separate from myself what the Lord joined to me by the law of the first creation, if only you yourself will be what your Maker meant you to be. But if you will not be a helper, but would rather make yourself a deceiver and a help not to me but to the adversary; if you imagine that the sacrament of marriage was granted to you so that you may rob yourself of this salvation offered to you, and also hold me back from following the Savior as a disciple, then I will hold resolutely to the words spoken by the lips of Abbot John, or rather of Christ himself, so that no fleshly affection may be able to tear me away from spiritual blessings. For he says: ‘Whoever does not hate father and mother and children and brothers and sisters and wife and lands, yes, and his own soul too, cannot be my disciple.’”

But when these and similar words did not move the woman’s purpose, and she persisted in the same stubborn hardness, the blessed Theonas said: “If I cannot drag you away from death, neither will you separate me from Christ. It is safer for me to be divorced from a human being than from God.” And so, by the help of God’s grace, he at once set about carrying out his purpose, and did not let the heat of his desire cool through any delay. He immediately stripped himself of all his worldly goods and fled to a monastery. There, in a very short time, he became so famous for the splendor of his holiness and humility that when John of blessed memory departed this life to the Lord, and the holy Elias, a man no less great than his predecessor, had likewise died, Theonas was chosen by the judgment of all as the third to succeed them in the administration of the almsgiving.