Letters

¹² Read the apocalypse of John, and consider what is sung therein of the woman arrayed in purple, and of the blasphemy written upon her brow, of the seven mountains, of the many waters, and of the end of Babylon. “Come out of her, my people,” so the Lord says, “that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.” Turn back also to Jeremiah and pay heed to what he has written of like import: “Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul.” For “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit.” It is true that Rome has a holy church, trophies of apostles and martyrs, a true confession of Christ.

The faith has been preached there by an apostle, heathenism has been trodden down, the name of Christian is daily exalted higher and higher. But the display, power, and size of the city, the seeing and the being seen, the paying and the receiving of visits, the alternate flattery and detraction, talking and listening, as well as the necessity of facing so great a throng even when one is least in the mood to do so— all these things are alike foreign to the principles and fatal to the repose of the monastic life.

For when people come in our way we either see them coming and are compelled to speak, or we do not see them and lay ourselves open to the charge of haughtiness. Sometimes, also, in returning visits we are obliged to pass through proud portals and gilded doors and to face the clamor of carping lackeys. But, as we have said above, in the cottage of Christ all is simple and rustic: and except for the chanting of psalms there is complete silence. Wherever one turns the laborer at his plough sings alleluia, the toiling mower cheers himself with psalms, and the vine-dresser while he prunes his vine sings one of the lays of David. These are the songs of the country; these, in popular phrase, its love ditties: these the shepherd whistles; these the tiller uses to aid his toil.