Letter to a Young Widow

² But lest the continual repetition of this name of widow should upset your soul, and disconcert your reason, having been inflicted on you in the very flower of your age, I wish first of all to discourse on this point, and to prove to you that this name of widow is not a title of calamity but of honour, aye the greatest honour. For do not quote the erroneous opinion of the world as a testimony, but the admonition of the blessed Paul, or rather of Christ. For in his utterances Christ was speaking through him as he himself said “If you seek a proof of Christ who is speaking in me?” What then does he say?

“Let not a widow be enrolled under threescore years of age” and again “but the younger widows refuse” intending by both these sayings to indicate to us the importance of the matter. And when he is making regulations about bishops he nowhere prescribes a standard of age, but in this case he is very particular on the point, and, pray, why so? Not because widowhood is greater than priesthood, but because widows have greater labour to undergo than priests, being encompassed on many sides by a variety of business public and private.

For as an unfortified city lies exposed to all who wish to plunder it, so a young woman living in widowhood has many who form designs upon her on every side not only those who aim at getting her money but also those who are bent upon corrupting her modesty. And besides these we shall find that she is subjected to other conditions also likely to occasion her fall. For the contempt of servants their negligence of business, the loss of that respect which was formerly paid, the sight of contemporaries in prosperity, and often the hankering after luxury, induce women to engage in a second marriage.

Some there are who do not choose to unite themselves to men by the law of marriage, but do so secretly and clandestinely. And they act thus in order to enjoy the praise of widowhood; thus it is a state which seems to be not reproached, but admired and deemed worthy of honour among men, not only among us who believe, but even among unbelievers also. For once when I was still a young man I know that the sophist who taught me (and he exceeded all men in his reverence for the gods) expressed admiration for my mother before a large company.

For enquiring, as was his wont, of those who sat beside him who I was, and some one having said that I was the son of a woman who was a widow, he asked of me the age of my mother and the duration of her widowhood, and when I told him that she was forty years of age of which twenty had elapsed since she lost my father he was astonished and uttered a loud exclamation, and turning to those present “Heavens!” cried he “what women there are among the Christians.” So great is the admiration and praise enjoyed by widowhood not only among ourselves, but also a among those who are outside the Church.

And being aware of all this the blessed Paul said “Let not a widow be enrolled under threescore years of age.” And even after this great qualification of age he does not permit her to be ranked in this sacred society but mentions some additional requisites “well reported of for good works, if she have brought up children if she have lodged strangers if she have washed the saints feet if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.” Heavens!

What testing and scrutiny! How much virtue does he demand from the widow, and how precisely does he define it! Which he would not have done, had he not intended to entrust to her a position of honour and dignity. And “the younger widows” he says “refuse;” and then he adds the reason: “for when they have waxed wanton against Christ they will marry.” By this expression he gives us to understand that they who have lost their husbands are wedded to Christ in their stead. Observe how he asserts this by way of indicating the mild and easy nature of this union; I refer to the passage “when they have waxed wanton against Christ they will marry,” as if He were some gentle husband who did not exercise authority over them, but suffered them to live in freedom.

Neither did Paul confine his discourse on the subject to these remarks, but also in another place again he has manifested great anxiety about it where he says “Now she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives; but she who is a widow indeed and desolate has set her hope in God, and continues in prayers and supplications day and night.” And writing to the Corinthians he says “But she is more blessed if she abide thus.” You see what great praise is bestowed upon widowhood, and this in the New Testament, when the beauty of virginity also was clearly brought to light.

Nevertheless even the lustre of this state could not obscure the glories of widowhood, which shines on brightly all the same, keeping its own value. When then we make mention of widowhood from time to time, do not be cast down, nor consider the matter a reproach; for if this be a matter of reproach, far more so is virginity. But this is not the case; no! God forbid. For inasmuch as we all admire and welcome women who live continently while their husbands are yet alive must we not be delighted with those who manifest the same good feeling concerning their husbands when they have departed this, life, and praise them accordingly?

As I was saying then, as long as you lived with the blessed Therasius you enjoyed honour and consideration such as is natural for a wife to receive from a husband; but now in his place you have God who is the Lord of all, who has of old been your protector and will be so now still more and with yet greater earnestness; and as I have already said He has displayed no slight token of his providential care by having preserved you whole and unharmed in the midst of such a furnace of anxiety and sorrow, and not suffering you to undergo anything undesirable.

Now if He has not permitted any shipwreck to take place in the midst of so much rough water, much more will He preserve your soul in calm weather and lighten the burden of your widowhood, and the consequences of it which seem to be so terrible.