Remorse

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  — 3. But the terms exomologesis or confession don’t just designate this terminal episode of penance. Often, too, they relate to the whole unfolding of the penitential procedure. It’s in this sense that Saint Irenaeus spoke of a woman who, after having espoused gnostic ideas, returned to the Church and spent the rest of her days “doing exomologesis”; or of a heretic who alternated between professing his errors and doing exomologesis.59 And when Tertullian evokes God’s establishment of “exomologesis in order to restore the sinner to grace,” and of that king of Babylon who for seven years running had done exomologesis, he’s thinking in fact of the whole penitential enterprise.60

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  Let us keep in mind only that the obligation of a metanoia, a repentance-penance, is endlessly repeated to Christians in the texts of the apostolic period. To be sure, it is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews that it is “impossible, for those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and became partakers of the Holy Spirit and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and nonetheless fell, to renew them a second time unto repentance.”3 But the text is referring to the uniqueness of baptism as an act of total “renewal” of the individual. It excludes neither the hatred of sins nor the supplication of forgiveness on the part of those who have received baptism: “For whatsoever we have done wrong, and for whatsoever we have done at the instigation of the Enemy’s henchmen, let us beg forgiveness.”4 A supplication that takes ritual and collective forms: “In the assembly, you shall confess your offenses, and shall not come forward to your prayer with an impure conscience”;5 just as when one meets on the dominical day, one breaks bread, one gives thanks “after first having confessed the sins, so that the sacrifice may be pure.”6 The whole community is called to take part in this repentance that everyone must experience and manifest. It may take the form of a mutual correction: “the admonition which we give to one another is good and most beneficial, for it unites us to the will of God.”7 It may take the form of intercessions for one another, addressed to the one who forgives.8 Or the form of fasts and supplications that should be done with those who have sinned.9 And it’s the role of the presbyters to show themselves to be “compassionate, merciful to all” and to “guide back the wanderers.”10

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  He speaks of Theodore, who owed his knowledge of the Text not so much to a “studious reading”—he understood just a few words of Greek—as “to purity of heart alone.”45 But this purity of heart is connected to knowledge according to a very different orientation: reflexively, involving the soul itself, its folds and its depths. In relation to this knowledge, purity is not simply a condition, it is at the same time an effect. No purity of heart if the soul doesn’t watch attentively over itself, on the lookout for the impulses produced within it and blotting out everything that might divert it from its contemplation. But conversely, it’s very much owing to purity that the interior gaze can penetrate into the heart’s secrets, shining the light there and dispelling its obscurity: “Thus penetrating with pure eyes of the mind to the foul darkness of vices, we may be able to disclose them and drag them forth to light; and may succeed in explaining their occasions and natures.”46 Now, what needs to be noted in Cassian’s analysis here is that the light brought into the heart doesn’t illuminate it all at once, ridding it of all the impurities it may contain. Rather, it penetrates the darkness, revealing what may be hidden there. But what hides is impurity, and it is this impurity that one must gradually free oneself from through an attentive examination, a vigilance that never relents, a constant remorse and one’s admission of that state. So that, through a circularity that is at the center of this asceticism of self-knowledge, the purer one is, the more light one has for knowing oneself better; the better one knows oneself, the more one recognizes how impure one is; the more one recognizes oneself as sullied, the more important it is to shine the light on one’s deepest recesses and dispel the darkness of the soul. Evoking the great spiritual masters, those who never get entangled in “hollow debates” but have the experience and practice of virtue, Cassian says that purity “has taught them this above all: to recognize more and more that they are burdened with sin (for their compunction for their faults increases day by day in proportion as their purity of soul advances), and to sigh continually from the bottom of their heart because they see that they cannot possibly avoid the spots and blemishes of those faults which are ingrained in them through the countless triflings of the thoughts.”47

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  What were they concealing? Yet when they passed us in the street they were always very cordial, always smiled, always spoke in English and a most excellent English it was. They used to make us feel rather ashamed of ourselves—they were superior, that’s what it was. And there was still another baffling thing—with the other boys a direct question brought a direct answer, but with Claude de Lorraine there was never any direct answer. He always smiled very charmingly before replying and he was very cool, collected, employing an irony and a mockery which was beyond us. He was a thorn in our side, Claude de Lorraine, and when finally he moved out of the neighborhood we all breathed a sigh of relief. As for myself, it was only maybe ten or fifteen years later that I thought about this boy and his strange, elegant behavior. And it was then that I felt I had made a bad blunder. For suddenly one day it occurred to me that Claude de Lorraine had come up to me on a certain occasion obviously to win my friendship and I had treated him rather cavalierly. At the time I thought of this incident it suddenly dawned on me that Claude de Lorraine must have seen something different in me and that he had meant to honor me by extending the hand of friendship. But back in those days I had a code of honor, such as it was, and that was to run with the herd. Had I become a bosom friend of Claude de Lorraine I would have been betraying the other boys. No matter what advantages lay in the wake of such a friendship they were not for me; I was one of the gang and it was my duty to remain aloof from such as Claude de Lorraine. I remembered this incident once again, I must say, after a still greater interval—after I had been in France a few months and the word raisonnable had come to acquire a wholly new significance for me. Suddenly one day, overhearing it, I thought of Claude de Lorraine’s overtures on the street in front of his house. I recalled vividly that he had used the word reasonable . He had probably asked me to be reasonable , a word which then would never have crossed my lips as there was no need for it in my vocabulary. It was a word, like gentleman, which was rarely brought out and then only with great discretion and circumspection. It was a word which might cause others to laugh at you. There were lots of words like that—really , for example. No one I knew had ever used the word really —until Jack Lawson came along. He used it because his parents were English and, though we made fun of him, we forgave him for it. Really was a word which reminded me immediately of little Carl Ragner from the old neighborhood.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  1. There first had to be an expression of the request. The sinner who solicited penance would confide to the bishop or presbyter both his desire to become a penitent and the reasons he had for becoming one. A detailed statement? We have seen, in regard to the apostasies and the practice of the examinatio, that this sometimes must have been the case. The sinner could even make use of testimonies and all sorts of inquiries: it’s to this approach that the juridical type of expression one finds in Saint Cyprian applies: exposita causa apud episcopum.48 But, except for these particular situations, the penance request must have been much more discreet. Did it involve only an oral confession expressed in general terms—perhaps simply by means of the recitation of a repentance psalm?49 One imagines that a succinct exposition was necessary to indicate the nature of the sin, allow its gravity to be assessed, and perhaps set the time, the justum tempus, that needed to elapse before the reconciliation could be envisaged.50 It was then no doubt that it was decided whether the sin merited the recourse to penance, or whether forgiveness could be obtained in other, less rigorous ways. Apparently, Cyprian is referring to this practice in De lapsis when he distinguishes those who must “do penance” because they have sacrificed or signed the certificates from those who did nothing more than entertain that idea: the latter group should “confess this to the priests of God simply and contritely.”51 It’s of this practice as well that Saint Ambrose’s biographer is thinking when he praises his subject for the indulgence with which he listened to sinners: often, instead of playing the part of public accuser, he chose to weep with the guilty one over his transgressions “without saying a word to anyone” and to intercede with God so that he might grant his pardon.52 Between the sinner and the one who granted the penance there was room, therefore, for a private interview—which doesn’t mean that it took place every time and necessarily. Here it is certain that we approach, up to a certain point, the form of the confessio oris as it will be found later at the heart of the penitential rite and as one of its essential components. But there is this fundamental difference: the verbal confession is here a simple preliminary to confession, and one that is not even absolutely necessary. It doesn’t constitute an integral or essential part of the practice. —

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  One can say that, in the practice of ancient penance, the part played by the “confession” is both vague and essential. Vague because it’s not a matter of a specific rite localized within the whole procedure, even if at certain moments the verbal declaration of the sin is no doubt required (as when one asks the bishop for the status of penitent). Essential because it is part of a constant dimension of the penitential exercise. This exercise, in the course of its proceedings, must manifest the truth. Later, in medieval penance, the confession will take the form of a “truth-telling” that will be the enumeration of sins committed: here it’s the entire penance that must constitute a “truth-telling”—or rather, since in it the role of verbal utterance is peculiarly limited in favor of gestures, behaviors, and ways of living, this will be a “truth-doing”: truly doing metanoia—repentance, mortification, resurrection to the true life. But this “truth-doing” essential to penance doesn’t have the role of reconstructing the sins committed by reliving them in memory. It doesn’t seek to establish the subjects’ identity or responsibility, it doesn’t constitute a mode of knowledge of oneself and one’s past, but rather the manifestation of a rupture: a temporal break, a renunciation of the world, and an inversion of life and death. The penitent, says Saint Ambrose, must be that young man who comes back home, and the girl he had loved presents herself and says: Here I am, ego sum. To which he replies: Sed ego non sum ego. A day will come, in the history of penitential practice, when the sinner will have to present himself to the priest and verbally itemize his sins: ego sum. But in its early form, penance, at the same time an exercise and a manifestation, a mortification and a veridiction, is a way of affirming ego non sum ego. The rites of exomologesis ensure that this rupture of identity is produced. Skip Notes * Manuscript: “from life to death.” 4The Art of ArtsSpiritual direction, self-examination, careful control by the subject of his acts and his thoughts, confiding what he has done to another, asking a guide for advice, and accepting the rules of conduct he suggests: all this is a very ancient tradition. The Christian authors didn’t conceal this antecedence or deny the kinship between these older practices and the exercises they themselves prescribed. Saint John Chrysostom recommends soul-searching by referring to the example of the pagan philosophers and by citing Pythagoras.1 Apparently, Epictetus’s Manual was copied by Saint Nilus as if it were a Christian text offering a code of existence capable of properly shaping the souls of the faithful and leading them to salvation. There is a certain continuity from the teachers of conduct in antiquity to the guides of ascetic life—referred to, moreover, as the philosophical life. The differences, however, must not be overlooked.

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  In the realms of reality, though, the exotic adventures of this speleologist of Parisian car parks can be dealt with in just two paragraphs. The assistant who had so emphatically drawn me to him right in the middle of the hotel foyer did indeed come and wake me up the following morning. Very fair, he had let me rest after our many journeys – we had been going across Canada – over the last few days. He pushed his hips calmly. I let him get on with it without much conviction, but I encouraged him almost as a professional would, choosing however a vocabulary that was more amorous than obscene. Afterwards he said, quite unaffectedly, that he had been thinking about it for several days, but that he had waited until the end of the trip so as not to disturb our work. We worked together again a number of times. He never made the slightest gesture of sexual invitation again, and neither did I. It was the first time that a sexual exchange that had started with someone whom I was to see again did not continue, did not naturally fertilize the soil of our relationship as friends and colleagues. It has to be said that I was at a stage in my life where I was trying with limited success, if not to be faithful, at least to limit myself. I thought that there might be the excusable transgressions permitted to people who were not libertines. It was the only time in my life that I vaguely regretted a sexual act.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  It’s still true that one can’t welcome everyone back without precaution; one must reflect and examine. The testimonies of those who had accepted facing martyrdom, in support of those who had “fallen”—either they had sacrificed, or they had signed certificates of sacrifice—cannot suffice, especially when they take the form of a sort of collective recommendation covering a whole family or household. More or less spontaneously, Cyprian—while maintaining his position of indulgence in principle—comes round to a practice that had been established and seems to have been codified into a written prescription of the procedures to be followed:39 examine, one by one, the situations of those asking to be admitted as penitents; consider the intentions and circumstances of the deed (causae, voluntates, necessitates); differentiate between “the one who rushed in immediately, of his own free will, to take part in the abominable sacrifice and the one who, having long struggled and delayed, finally came by compulsion to the disastrous deed; the one who betrayed both himself and his own people and the one who, approaching the crisis for all, protected his wife and children and whole household.”40 It seems that another examination was in order—this time involving not the circumstances of the sin but the sinner’s behavior since then:41 that is, in the period when, either spontaneously or following the canonical forms, he does his penance, manifests his remorse, and shows his determination to live as a believer: “Let them watch at the gates of the heavenly camp, but armed with the modesty by which they recognize they have been deserters”;42 to whomever does not profess his sorrow (nec dolorum […] manifesta lamentationis suae professione testantes), one must refuse the hope of communion and peace.43 Given the difficulty of such an examination, the communities’ expressed opposition to the return of the lapsi, and the hostility that personal decisions could arouse, the decisions often had to be made collectively, under the direction of and in the presence of the faithful. This is shown by a letter of the Roman priests to Cyprian: it is “extremely unpopular and burdensome to us not to examine through many what seems to have been committed by many and for one to give a judgment […] since that cannot be a firm decree which will not seem to have the agreement of the majority.”44 The importance of these examination practices was linked to a particular conjuncture that explains the scale they attained at a given moment. Doubtless they disappeared with the end of the persecutions. But the external control of penitents—which calls to mind the control that, through interrogation, investigation, and testimony, was brought to bear on catechumens—played a relatively small role compared to another truth procedure that was much more central to penance: the procedure by which the sinner himself recognized his own sins.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  Relative to baptism, the carefully regulated practice of the “second” penance is not any less demanding. On the contrary—penance is a matter of soliciting what had once been granted and of obtaining through exception the effect of a grace already offered to the baptized. Penance is stricter than baptism. God offers baptism to every person who recognizes it, and so he offers the remission of sins as a gratuita donatio; by contrast, he concedes forgiveness to the penitent as a fruit of the long labor he has exerted on himself.32 The authors of the third and fourth centuries don’t revisit the principle that preparation for baptism cannot dispense with discipline, but they do stress that in penance the sinner who has already received grace must take responsibility for his own sins. This is Origen’s principle: apolambanein tas hamartias.33 And in spite of the principle that there is no second baptism, penance is occasionally spoken of as the “laborious baptism.”34 One can say—without going into the problems of sacramentary theology and its history—that starting in the third century, a difference of accent becomes noticeable in the way the authors describe the metanoia connected with baptism and the metanoia that is indispensable to ecclesiastical penance. Doubtless in both cases it always involves a repentance by which the soul frees itself from the sins that defile it. But in connection with baptism it is liberation, aphesis, that is underscored; for the metanoia necessary to reconciliation, it’s above all the labor that the soul exerts on itself and on the offenses it has committed. — In the unfolding of canonical penance, the procedures for manifesting the truth of the penitent soul are numerous. And they present appreciable differences compared to those employed for baptism and its preparation.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Ahab takes possession of the vineyard. The situation is reminiscent of the incident of David and Bathsheba. There also a king wanted something that belonged to another man and eventually resorted to murder to get his way. There also the king was confronted by a prophet. There is a striking contrast, however, between the approach of Nathan and that of Elijah. Nathan induced David to condemn himself by appealing to values that the king shared. Such an appeal may not have been possible in the case of Ahab. In any case, Elijah makes no attempt to win the king over but pronounces a judgment, in effect a curse, on both Ahab and Jezebel. In fact, the coup that terminated Ahab’s line came not in his lifetime but in that of his son. The Deuteronomist explains this by saying that Ahab humbled himself and was given a reprieve. The confrontation between Elijah and Ahab, however, sets a pattern that is often repeated in the books of the prophets. The prophets whose oracles are preserved in these books are in most cases “troublers of Israel” (at least down to the Babylonian exile). Their relations with the kings of Israel and Judah are usually adversarial. The issue of Naboth’s vineyard is also representative of the concerns of many of those prophets, especially those of the eighth century B.C.E. Isaiah pronounces woes on those who “add house to house and field to field” (Isa 5:8), and similar issues dominate the book of Amos. At issue was not only the possession of particular plots of land but the character of Israelite and Judean society, where the independent landowners were increasingly forced into servitude and wealth was concentrated in the hands of the upper classes. Like Elijah, these prophets insist on the worship of YHWH alone, but they also insist that the worship of YHWH entails a commitment to social justice. The end of Elijah’s earthly career is described in 2 Kings 2. His affinity with Moses is underlined in the incident where he parts the waters of the Jordan. Then he is taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot. Elijah shares with Enoch the distinction of being taken up alive to heaven. (Moses was sometimes believed to have been taken up. Even though he is explicitly said to have died in Deut 34:5-6, no one knew his burial place.) Because Elijah had not died, it was believed that he would come back to earth “before the great and terrible Day of the L ord ” (Mal 4:5). This belief is first attested in the book of Malachi, about 400 B.C.E.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  "You see," said Lorenzo, "a stranger has come into my house, yet he will not stoop to pay me a visit." "He does not ask for me; let him go or stay at his pleasure," replied the friar to those who told him that Lorenzo was in the convent garden. Five influential citizens of Florence called and suggested to the friar that he modify his public utterances. Recognizing that they had come at Lorenzo’s instance, he bade them tell the prince to do penance for his sins, for the Lord is no respecter of persons and spares not the mighty of the earth. Lorenzo called upon Fra Mariano to publicly take Savonarola to task. This he did from the pulpit on Ascension Day, 1491. Lorenzo himself was present, but the preacher’s charges overshot the mark, and Savonarola was more popular than ever. The prior of St. Mark’s exclaimed, "Although I am a stranger in the city, and Lorenzo the first man in the state, yet shall I stay here and it is he who will go hence." When the hour of death approached, Lorenzo was honest with himself. In vain did the physician, Lazzaro of Pavia, resort to the last medical measure, a potion of distilled gems. Farewell was said to Pico della Mirandola and other literary friends, and Lorenzo gave his final counsels to his son, Piero. The solemn rites of absolution and extreme unction were all that remained for man to receive from man. Lorenzo’s confessor was within reach but the prince looked to St. Mark’s. "I know of no honest friar save this one," he exclaimed. And so Savonarola was summoned to the bedside in the villa Careggi, two miles from the city. The dying man wanted to make confession of three misdeeds: the sack of Volterra, the robbery of Monte delle Fanciulle and the merciless reprisals after the Pazzi conspiracy. The spiritual messenger then proceeded to present three conditions on which his absolution depended. The first was a strong faith in God’s mercy. The dying man gave assent. The second was that he restore his ill-gotten wealth, or charge his sons to do it. To this assent was also given. The third demand required that he give back to Florence her liberties. To this Lorenzo gave no response and turned his face to the wall. The priest withdrew and, in a few hours, April 8, 1492, the ruler of Florence passed into the presence of the omnipotent Judge who judgeth not according to the appearance but according to the heart and whose mercy is everlasting. The surmisal has been made that, if Savonarola had been less rigid, he might have exercised an incalculable influence for good upon the dying prince who was still susceptible of religious impressions.1185 But who can with probability conjecture the secrets of the divine purpose in such cases?

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  At the close of the twelfth century a complete change was made in the doctrine of penance. The theory of the early Church, elaborated by Tertullian and other Church fathers, was that penance is efficient to remove sins committed after baptism, and that it consisted in certain penitential exercises such as prayer and alms. The first elements added by the mediaeval system were that confession to the priest and absolution by the priest are necessary conditions of pardon. Peter the Lombard did not make the mediation of the priest a requirement, but declared that confession to God was sufficient. In his time, he says, there was no agreement on three aspects of penance: first, whether contrition for sin was not all that was necessary for its remission; second, whether confession to the priest was essential; and third, whether confession to a layman was insufficient. The opinions handed down from the Fathers, he asserts, were diverse, if not antagonistic.1716 Alexander of Hales marks a new era in the history of the doctrine. He was the first of the Schoolmen to answer clearly all these questions, and to him more than to any other single theologian does the Catholic Church owe its doctrine of penance. Thomas Aquinas confirmed what Alexander taught.1717 In distinction from baptism, which is a regeneration, Thomas Aquinas declared penance to be a restoration to health and he and Bonaventura agreed that it is the efficacious remedy for mortal sins. Thomas traced its institution back to Christ, who left word that "penance and remission of sins should be preached from Jerusalem," Luke 24:47. James had this institution in mind when he called upon Christians to confess their sins one to another.1718 Penance may be repeated, for we may again and again lose our love to God. Penance consists of four elements: contrition of heart, confession with the mouth, satisfaction by works, and the priest’s absolution. The first three are called the substance of penance and are the act of the offender. The priest’s absolution is termed the form of penance.1719 1. Contrition was defined as the sorrow of the soul for its sins, an aversion from them, and a determination not to commit them again. The Lombard and Gratian taught that such contrition, being rooted in love, is adequate for the divine pardon without confession to a priest or priestly absolution.1720

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The chief interest of the controversy was now shifted to the strictly theological question whether Christ and his Apostles observed complete poverty. This dispute threatened to rend the wing of the Conventuals itself. Michael of Cesena, Ockam, and others, took the position that Christ and his Apostles not only held no property as individuals, but held none in common. John, opposing this view, gave as arguments the gifts of the Magi, that Christ possessed clothes and bought food, the purse of Judas, and Paul’s labor for a living. In the bull Cum inter nonnullos, 1323, and other bulls, John declared it heresy to hold that Christ and the Apostles held no possessions. Those who resisted this interpretation were pronounced, 1324, rebels and heretics. John went farther, and gave back to the order the right of possessing goods in fee simple, a right which Innocent IV. had denied, and he declared that in things which disappear in the using, such as eatables, no distinction can be made between their use and their possession. In 1326 John pronounced Olivi’s commentary on the Apocalypse heretical. The three Spiritual leaders, Cesena, Ockam, and Bonagratia were seized and held in prison until 1328, when they escaped and fled to Lewis the Bavarian at Pisa. It was at this time that Ockam was said to have used to the emperor the famous words, "Do thou defend me with the sword and I will defend thee with the pen"—tu me depfendes gladio, ego te defendam calamo. They were deposed from their offices and included in the ban fulminated against the anti-pope, Peter of Corbara. Later, Cesena submitted to the pope, as Ockam is also said to have done shortly before his death. Cesena died at Munich, 1342 He committed the seal of the order to Ockam. On his death-bed he is said to have cried out: "My God, what have I done? I have appealed against him who is the highest on the earth. But look, O Father, at the spirit of truth that is in me which has not erred through the lust of the flesh but from great zeal for the seraphic order and out of love for poverty." Bonagratia also died in Munich.126 Later in the fourteenth century the Regular Observance grew again to considerable proportions, and in the beginning of the fifteenth century its fame was revived by the flaming preachers Bernardino of Siena and John of Capistrano. The peace of the Franciscan order continued to be the concern of pope after pope until, in 1517, Leo X. terminated the struggle of three centuries by formally recognizing two distinct societies within the Franciscan body. The moderate wing was placed under the Master-General of the Conventual Minorite Brothers, and was confirmed in the right to hold property. The strict or Observant wing was placed under a Minister-General of the Whole Order of St. Francis.127 The latter takes precedence in processions and at other great functions, and holds his office for six years.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  After his baptism, Jerome divided his life between the East and the West, between ascetic discipline and literary labor. He removed from Rome to Antioch with a few friends and his library, visited the most celebrated anchorets, attended the exegetical lectures of the younger Apollinaris in Antioch, and then (374) spent some time as an ascetic in the dreary Syrian desert of Chalcis. Here, like so many other hermits, he underwent a grevious struggle with sensuality, which he described ten years after with indelicate minuteness in a long letter to his virgin friend Eustochium.356 In spite of his starved and emaciated body, his fancy tormented him with wild images of Roman banquets and dances of women; showing that the monastic seclusion from the world was by no means proof against the temptations of the flesh and the devil. Helpless he cast himself at the feet of Jesus, wet them with tears of repentance, and subdued the resisting flesh by a week of fasting and by the dry study of Hebrew grammar (which, according to a letter to Rusticus,357 he was at that time learning from a converted Jew), until he found peace, and thought himself transported to the choirs of the angels in heaven. In this period probably falls the dream mentioned above, and the composition of several ascetic writings, full of heated eulogy of the monastic life.358 His biographies of distinguished anchorets, however, are very pleasantly and temperately written.359 He commends monastic seclusion even against the will of parents; interpreting the word of the Lord about forsaking father and mother, as if monasticism and Christianity were the same. "Though thy mother"—he writes, in 373, to his friend Heliodorus, who had left him in the midst of his journey to the Syrian desert—"with flowing hair and rent garments, should show thee the breasts which have nourished thee; though thy father should lie upon the threshold; yet depart thou, treading over thy father, and fly with dry eyes to the standard of the cross. This is the only religion of its kind, in this matter to be cruel .... The love of God and the fear of hell easily, rend the bonds of the household asunder. The holy Scripture indeed enjoins obedience to parents; but he who loves them more than Christ, loses his soul .... O desert, where the flowers of Christ are blooming!. O solitude, where the stones for the new Jerusalem are prepared! O retreat, which rejoices in the friendship of God! What doest thou in the world, my brother, with thy soul greater than the world? How long wilt thou remain in the shadow of roofs, and in the smoky dungeon of cities? Believe me, I see here more of the light."360 The eloquent appeal, however, failed of the desired effect; Heliodorus entered the teaching order and became a bishop.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby, very blamable,” said Elinor, while her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion; “you ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my sister. You had made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least. She must be attached to you, or she would not have married you. To treat her with unkindness, to speak of her slightingly is no atonement to Marianne—nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience.” “Do not talk to me of my wife,” said he with a heavy sigh; “she does not deserve your compassion. She knew I had no regard for her when we married. Well, married we were, and came down to Combe Magna to be happy, and afterwards returned to town to be gay. And now do you pity me, Miss Dashwood? Or have I said all this to no purpose? Am I,—be it only one degree,—am I less guilty in your opinion than I was before? My intentions were not always wrong. Have I explained away any part of my guilt?” “Yes, you have certainly removed something—a little. You have proved yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed you. You have proved your heart less wicked, much less wicked. But I hardly know—the misery that you have inflicted—I hardly know what could have made it worse.” “Will you repeat to your sister when she is recovered, what I have been telling you?—Let me be a little lightened too in her opinion as well as in yours. You tell me that she has forgiven me already. Let me be able to fancy that a better knowledge of my heart, and of my present feelings, will draw from her a more spontaneous, more natural, more gentle, less dignified, forgiveness. Tell her of my misery and my penitence—tell her that my heart was never inconstant to her, and if you will, that at this moment she is dearer to me than ever.” “I will tell her all that is necessary to what may comparatively be called, your justification. But you have not explained to me the particular reason of your coming now, nor how you heard of her illness.”

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “When the first of hers reached me (as it immediately did, for I was in town the whole time,) what I felt is—in the common phrase, not to be expressed; in a more simple one—perhaps too simple to raise any emotion—my feelings were very, very painful.—Every line, every word was—in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here, would forbid—a dagger to my heart. To know that Marianne was in town was—in the same language—a thunderbolt.—Thunderbolts and daggers!—what a reproof would she have given me!—her taste, her opinions—I believe they are better known to me than my own,—and I am sure they are dearer.” Elinor’s heart, which had undergone many changes in the course of this extraordinary conversation, was now softened again;—yet she felt it her duty to check such ideas in her companion as the last. “This is not right, Mr. Willoughby.—Remember that you are married. Relate only what in your conscience you think necessary for me to hear.” “Marianne’s note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as in former days,—that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been separated, she was as constant in her own feelings, and as full of faith in the constancy of mine as ever,—awakened all my remorse. I say awakened, because time and London, business and dissipation, had in some measure quieted it, and I had been growing a fine hardened villain, fancying myself indifferent to her, and chusing to fancy that she too must have become indifferent to me; talking to myself of our past attachment as a mere idle, trifling business, shrugging up my shoulders in proof of its being so, and silencing every reproach, overcoming every scruple, by secretly saying now and then, ‘I shall be heartily glad to hear she is well married.’ But this note made me know myself better. I felt that she was infinitely dearer to me than any other woman in the world, and that I was using her infamously. But every thing was then just settled between Miss Grey and me. To retreat was impossible. All that I had to do, was to avoid you both. I sent no answer to Marianne, intending by that to preserve myself from her farther notice; and for some time I was even determined not to call in Berkeley Street;—but at last, judging it wiser to affect the air of a cool, common acquaintance than anything else, I watched you all safely out of the house one morning, and left my name.” “Watched us out of the house!”

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  She is buried on the Mount of Olives. Indeed, the sepulture of Pelagia provides a reminder that the stories of penitent prostitutes do not simply belong to a closed world of monastic literature. In the 570s a western pilgrim visiting the holy land reported, among the other sights encountered on his journey, the tomb of Pelagia. Her memory belonged to a vibrant world of popular Christian imagination. Indeed, a tomb of Pelagia can still be visited in Jerusalem today, a numinous site sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. A custom is remembered at the site, by which a curious penitent may try to step through a cramped passage in the tomb, to test whether forgiveness for one’s sins has been granted. The deep symbolism of these folk traditions is almost too perfect: just as the penitent prostitutes replaced the virgins of romance, the tomb of Pelagia has replaced the cave of Pan—and as a test of penance rather than purity. 64 Pelagia inhabited the vibrantly bilingual world of late antique Syria. The legends of the penitent prostitutes passed easily between the interconnected worlds of Greek and Syriac. At least one of the legends of a penitent prostitute, Mary the niece of Abraham, was originally composed in Syriac. The tale of her repentance belonged to a longer cycle of narratives about her uncle, the hermit Abraham of Qidun. The Life of Abraham is an early text, preserved in a manuscript as old as the fifth century. Thus, the legend of Mary is almost exactly contemporary with the spread of the Sayings of the Fathers beyond Egypt and the elaboration of the story of Pelagia. Although her story was written in Syriac, the narrative betrays an intimate familiarity with Greek fiction—indeed, the text depends as much on its inversions of romance as do the lives of Thais and Pelagia. Unsurprisingly, the text was translated into Greek and Latin, and like the other legends of the penitent prostitutes, it was popular across the Mediterranean. 65 Mary was an only child, orphaned by her parents and left in the charge of her uncle, Abraham, a monk in a village near Edessa. For the first twenty years of her life she imitated her uncle and lived “like a chaste lamb, like a spotless dove.” Then she became the target of a satanic plot: she was seduced by a devious monk. Having lost her purity, Mary is distraught, but her distress is that of a romantic heroine subjected to the unthinkable. Unchastity is a sort of death. “I am now as good as dead.”

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  A Palestinian origin for the redaction would add poignancy to the humbling finale of Taïsia’s story. The heavenly voice that affirms her salvation reminds us of nothing so much as an aphorism of Rabbi Judah ha Nasi that recurs throughout Avodah Zarah, uttered after the repentance of the most condign sinners. “One may acquire eternal life after many years, another in one hour!” 49 In the desert, “the air is more pure, the heavens are more open, and God is nearer.” The figure of the penitent prostitute first took shape in the sands of Egypt, in the earliest monastic traditions, because she so radically condensed the cosmic possibilities of repentance, metanoia. In the pioneer phases of Egyptian monasticism, fallen women begin to populate the landscape as avatars of temptation and repentance. Taïsia belongs to this most primitive stratum. The trials and ecstasies she experienced were not hers alone. In another early legend an anonymous monk discovers that his sister has fallen into prostitution. He leads her to repentance, and as they walk into the desert, she expires. In the tale that was destined to have the most extravagant afterlife, a monk named Serapion passes through a “village of Egypt” and sees “a prostitute standing in her cell.” When dusk falls, he goes in with her. He chanted the psalms and prayed to God that she would “repent and be saved.” The prostitute realizes that he has come to save her soul. She cries and asks Serapion to lead her away. When they arrive at a monastery of virgins, he gives the abbess instructions to be gentle with her. After a few days, the former prostitute told the abbess, “I am a sinner. I want to eat every two days.” Then, again, she said, “I am a sinner. I want to eat every four days.” Finally, she asked the abbess to wall her in a cell with only a little opening to pass through bread. “Thus for the rest of her life she was pleasing to God.” The story begins in a cell (kellion) of dishonor and death, ends in a cell (kellion) of repentance and life. The living sepulture of the penitent prostitute symbolized both the radical possibilities, and the suffocating limits, of a purely spiritual redemption. 50 The Egyptian desert, in late antiquity, was to prove the birthplace of new archetypes of human spirituality. With its barren horizons, the simple ecology of life on the edges of civilization provided a rarefied backdrop. Here men—and some women—wrestled with sin, stared down the devil, and sought internal transformation. In the desert tales of penitent prostitutes, the features of the moral landscape are simple. The women themselves are sketched in little detail. The focus of the brief encounter is the father—his steadfastness, his grace.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  43 The sequence opens with the arrest and acquittal of Rabbi Eliezer, who is mistakenly charged with minuth —Christian heresy. This accusation, even though false, perturbs him. He remembers a conversation with a follower of Jesus that may have led to the confusion. The conversation involved the citation of three verses on fornication, on harlotry. The Talmud puts into mind both the literal meaning, prostitution, and the metaphorical meaning, spiritual promiscuity, idolatry. These passages prompt reflection on the nature of sin and evoke the question whether the literal commission of fornication is as damning as its metaphorical twin, idolatry or heresy. The editors tell the story of Rabbi Eleazar ben Dordia, a fallen rabbi who had sex with no less than every prostitute in the world. When a prostitute warned him that he was lost, he was suddenly struck to his core with remorse for his sins. He begged God for forgiveness. A heavenly voice announced his redemption, whereupon he immediately died. His sin of sexual fornication was so vast that it was like minuth, heresy. When Rabbi Judah ha Nasi heard this story, he wept and exclaimed, “One may acquire eternal life after many years, or in an hour!” The first half of the sequence then closes with a story that recapitulates all the themes of the preceding discussion. Rabbi Hanina and Rabbi Jonathan are walking and reach a fork in the road, and they must pass either a temple of idolatry or a brothel. They opt for the brothel. Not only does this imply that idolatry is worse than literal fornication, the rabbis hope to earn merit for overcoming their desires. As they walk past the brothel, the prostitutes scramble inside, out of their presence. Significantly, in the concluding words the anonymous of the Babylonian tells us, “Against these things the Torah will watch over thee.” 44 It is against this story that, thematically, the escape from the brothel must be understood. The text launches into another stream of memories, narrating a sequence of events which step-by-step mirrors the first series. The second panel begins with an arrest—two arrests, in fact, one of which is the arrest of Haninah ben Teradion for studying the Torah. He is executed by fire. He has with him a scroll of the Torah that he was studying, and as he expires he experiences a vision of the letters of the Torah ascending to heaven, even as the parchment burned. The executioner is moved by the scene and repents of his sins.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  The tales are monastic from start to finish; even in the prostitute’s lair, the monk brings with him the whiff of the desert. The chief elements of the drama are sin and repentance. We are in a world where sin is inextricable from the machinations of the devil and his demons. In this setting, the significance of the girl’s prostitution is not that it places her outside of respectable society. It is, rather, that it arrays her with the forces of evil. Her repentance is not just the recovery of a most abandoned sinner. A victory over fornication is a defeat over Satan’s legions. The monks who induce the conversion of the prostitute are like a modern sports team that courts away its rival’s most valuable player. The desert tales of penitent prostitutes are allegories of sin and salvation, played out against the grander cosmic battle between good and evil. The literary side is only one half of her story, for in the same period, in the late fourth and then more explosively in the fifth century, the penitent prostitute, modeled on the “sinful woman” in the Gospel of Luke, becomes a popular subject for Christian preachers. Her tearful repentance proved congenial to homilists in an age of mass conversion. The currency of these legends, already in the late fourth century, is also confirmed in a most unlikely source: the rhetorical handbook of the pagan sophist of Antioch, Libanius. In one of his training exercises, Libanius creates a penitent pagan prostitute. She represents the cross-pollination of Christianity and philosophical paganism in the fourth century. The word “repentance” is glaringly absent (instead she “becomes chaste”), but the mood is entirely Christian. “I purify my mind. I flee Aphrodite, I prefer the clemency of Athena.” The speech spoke of prostitution in terms of “pollution,” and there was a clear religious subtext to the speech: the prostitute fled Aphrodite, preferring chaste Athena. Even so, Libanius could not resist insinuating that Aphrodite was wrongfully accused of perversion. The prostitute wanted to set up a law telling women in prostitution that they had the capacity to become pure and to flee—a full generation before Theodosius II would actually do so. The speech was a fictional school exercise, to be sure, but nevertheless represents a remarkable statement from a late pagan intellectual eager to defend the sexual integrity of his religion.