Chapter VIII.—Conclusion.

For, concerning the honours which widowhood enjoys in the sight of God, there is a brief summary in one saying of His through the prophet:  “Do thou89    So Oehler reads, with Rhenanus and the mss.  The other edd. have the plural in each case, as the LXX. in the passage referred to (Isa. i. 17, 18). justly to the widow and to the orphan; and come ye,90    So Oehler reads, with Rhenanus and the mss.  The other edd. have the plural in each case, as the LXX. in the passage referred to (Isa. i. 17, 18). let us reason, saith the Lord.”  These two names, left to the care of the divine mercy, in proportion as they are destitute of human aid, the Father of all undertakes to defend.  Look how the widow’s benefactor is put on a level with the widow herself, whose champion shall “reason with the Lord!”  Not to virgins, I take it, is so great a gift given.  Although in their case perfect integrity and entire sanctity shall have the nearest vision of the face of God, yet the widow has a task more toilsome, because it is easy not to crave after that which you know not, and to turn away from what you have never had to regret.91    Desideraveris.  Oehler reads “desideres.”  More glorious is the continence which is aware of its own right, which knows what it has seen.  The virgin may possibly be held the happier, but the widow the more hardly tasked; the former in that she has always kept “the good,”92    Comp. c. iii. the latter in that she has found “the good for herself.”  In the former it is grace, in the latter virtue, that is crowned.  For some things there are which are of the divine liberality, some of our own working.  The indulgences granted by the Lord are regulated by their own grace; the things which are objects of man’s striving are attained by earnest pursuit.  Pursue earnestly, therefore, the virtue of continence, which is modesty’s agent; industry, which allows not women to be “wanderers;”93    1 Tim. v. 13. frugality, which scorns the world.94    Sæculum.  Follow companies and conversations worthy of God, mindful of that short verse, sanctified by the apostle’s quotation of it, “Bad company corrupts good habits.”95    A verse said to be Menander’s, quoted by St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 33; quoted again, but somewhat differently rendered, by Tertullian in b. i. c. iii.

CAPUT VIII.

Nam de viduitatis honoribus apud Dominum uno dicto ejus per Prophetam expeditum est: Juste facite viduae et pupillo, et venite disputemus, dicit Dominus. Duo ista nomina in quantum despectui humano, in tantum divinae misericordiae exposita, suscepit tueri Pater omnium . Vide quam ex aequo habetur qui viduae benefecerit, quanti est vidua ipsa, cujus assertor cum Domino disputavit ! Non tantum virginibus datum opinor, licet in illis integritas solida et tota sanctitas de proximo visura sit faciem Dei. Tamen vidua habet 1287B aliquid operosius: quia facile est non appetere quod nescias, et aversari quod desideraveris nunquam. Gloriosior continentia, quae jus suum sentit; quae quid viderit, novit. Poterit virgo felicior haberi, at vidua laboriosior: illa, quod bonum semper habuit; ista, quod bonum sibi invenit. In illa gratia, in ista 1288A virtus coronatur. Quaedam enim sunt divinae liberalitatis, quaedam nostrae operationis. Quae a Domino indulgentur, sua gratia gubernantur; quae ab homine captantur, studio perpetrantur. Stude igitur ad virtutem continentiae [modestiae ], quae pudori procurat; sedulitati, quae nugas non facit; frugalitati, quae saeculum spernit. Convictum atque commercia Deo digna sectare, memor illius versiculi, sanctificati per Apostolum: Bonos corrumpunt mores congressus mali.