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AND when his wife was hard and would not consent to him as he
constantly persisted with entreaties of this kind, but said that as she was
in the flower of her age she could not altogether do without the solace of
her husband, and further that supposing she was deserted by him and fell
into sin, the guilt would rather be his who had broken the bonds of
wedlock: to this he, when he had for a long while urged the condition of
human nature (which being so weak and uncertain, it would be dangerous for
it to be any longer mixed up with carnal desires and works), added the
assertion that it was not right for anyone to cut himself off from that
virtue to which he had learnt that he ought by all means to cleave, and
that it was more dangerous to disregard goodness when discovered, than to
fail to love it before it was discovered; further that he was already
involved in the guilt of a fall if when he had discovered such grand and
heavenly blessings he had preferred earthly and mean ones. Further that the
grandeur of perfection was open to every age and either sex, and that all
the members of the Church were urged to scale the heights of heavenly
goodness when the Apostle said: "So run that ye may obtain;" nor should
those who were ready and eager for it hang back because of the delays of
the slow and dawdlers, as it is better for the sluggards to be urged on by
those running before than for those who are doing their best to be hampered
by the slothful. Further that he had determined and made up his mind to
renounce the world and to die to the world that he might live to God, and
that if he could not attain this happiness; viz., to pass with his wife
into union with Christ, he would rather be saved even with the loss of one
member, and enter into the kingdom of heaven as one maimed rather than be
condemned with his body whole. But he also added and spoke as follows: If
Moses suffered wives to be divorced for the hardness of their hearts, why
should not Christ allow this for the desire of chastity, especially when
the same Lord among those other affections; viz., for fathers and mothers
and children (all due regard to which not only the law but He Himself also
charged to be shown, 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 also the mention of wives,
saying: "And everyone that hath left house, or brethren or sisters or
father or mother or wife or children for My name's sake, shall receive an
hundredfold and shall inherit eternal life." So far then is He from
allowing anything to be set against that perfection which He is
proclaiming, that He actually enjoins that the ties to father and mother
should be broken and disregarded out of love for Him, though according to
the Apostle it is the first commandment with promise; viz., "Honour thy
father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it
may be well with thee and that thy days may be long upon earth." And as
the word of the gospel condemns those who break the chains of matrimony
where there has been no sin of adultery, so it clearly promises a reward of
an hundredfold to those who have cast off a carnal yoke out of love for
Christ and the desire for chastity. Wherefore if it can be brought about
that you may listen to reason and be turned together with me to this most
desirable choice; viz., that we should together serve the Lord and escape
the pains of hell, I will not refuse the affection of marriage, nay I will
embrace it with a still greater love. For I acknowledge and honour my
helpmeet assigned to me by the word of the Lord, and I do not refuse to be
joined to her in an unbroken tie of love in Christ, nor do I separate from
me what the Lord joined to me by the law of the original condition, if
only you yourself will be what your Maker meant you to be. But if you will
not be a helpmeet, but prefer to make yourself a deceiver and an assistance
not to me but to the adversary, and fancy that the sacrament of matrimony
was granted to you for this reason that you may deprive yourself of this
salvation which is offered to you, and also hold me back from following the
Saviour as a disciple, then I will resolutely lay hold on the words which
were uttered by the lips of Abbot John, or rather of Christ Himself, so
that no carnal affection may be able to tear me away from spiritual
blessings, for He says: "He that hateth not father and mother and children
and brothers and sisters and wife and lands, yea and his own soul also,
cannot be My disciple." When then by these and such like words the
woman's purpose was not moved and she persisted in the same obstinate
hardness, If, said the blessed Theonas, I cannot drag you away from death,
neither shall you separate me from Christ: but it is safer for me to be
divorced from a human person than from God. And so by the aid of God's
grace he at once set about the execution of his purpose and suffered not
the ardour of his desire to grow cool through any delay. For at once he
stripped himself of all his worldly goods, and fled to a monastery, where
in a very short time he was so famous for the splendour of his sanctity and
humility that when John of blessed memory departed this life to the Lord,
and the holy Elias, a man who was 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.
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