Augustine, Sermones 341-346 (Classis IV, de Diversis)

Sermon 343. On Susanna and Joseph: with an exhortation to chastity.

1. Susanna an example of conjugal modesty. Chastity a gift of God. Susanna divinely delivered from the false witnesses. Let the divine readings and the holy oracles of God which have sounded in our ears make a nest in our minds: let them not fly in and pass on, or settle and depart; but let them bring forth something. For if the sparrow has found itself a house, and the turtle-dove a nest where it may lay its young (Ps. 83:4); how much more the sparrow, the word of God, and the turtle-dove, the mercy of God? We have heard the reading about Susanna: let conjugal modesty be built up, and let it rest on so firm a foundation and be fenced about with a wall, that it may both repel those who lie in wait and refute false witnesses. The chaste woman had been left to die, had not He been present Who saw what was hidden from those judging. Her words are written down, which she spoke in the paradise, that is, in her garden: words which no one of men heard except the two alone who were lying in wait against the modesty of another man's wife, and were contriving false testimony against her as she resisted. They alone heard what was said: Straits are on every side of me. For if I do this, it is death to me; but if I do not do it, I shall not escape your hands. But it is better for me not to escape your hands than to sin in the sight of God (Dan. 13:22). She despised what she heard, because she feared Him Whom she did not see; to Whose divine eyes, however, she herself was in plain view. For she was not unseen by God in the way that she did not see God. God saw what He was building, He was inspecting His own work, He was dwelling in His own temple; He Himself was there, He was answering those who lay in wait. For if the Giver of chastity had abandoned her, chastity would have perished. So she says, Straits are on every side of me. But she was also waiting for Him Who would save her from faintness of heart, and from the storm of the false witnesses, as of evil winds. Yet in those winds and waves chastity did not suffer shipwreck; because the Lord steered. There was an outcry, people came, proceedings were taken: the case came to judgement. Susanna's household had believed the false elders against their mistress: and although her former life, unharmed and unstained, seemed fit to bear witness to her modesty; yet to them it seemed irreligious not to believe the elders. No such talk had ever been heard about Susanna. They, then, were false witnesses; but known to God. The household believed one thing, the Lord saw another: but what the Lord saw, men did not know; it seemed right that the elders be believed. So she had to die: but if the flesh died, chastity would be crowned. The Lord was present to her as she prayed, He heard her whom He knew: He did not abandon to death her whom He helped not to commit adultery. The Lord stirred up the spirit

holy, of Daniel, still young in age but robust in piety. Since, then, the prophetic Spirit was in him, he at once saw the deceit of the most wicked elders. But what he perceived, provision had to be made as to how it might be shown to the rest. 'They are false witnesses,' he says; 'return to the judgement.' But that they were false, he knew, to whom the prophetic Spirit had revealed it: those who did not know had to be taught. Therefore, if the judges had to be taught, the witnesses beyond doubt had to be convicted. So, convicting them, intent on the falsehood of the testimony, which he himself already knew, he ordered them to be separated from each other. He questioned them one by one: for both could have one lust, but they could not devise one plan. The one was asked under what tree he had caught the adulterers; he answered, 'Under a mastic tree.' The other was asked; he answered, 'Under a holm oak.' The disagreement of the testimonies laid bare the truth and set chastity free (Dan. 13).

2. For Susanna, because she was set free, there was no greater happiness from it. And chastity indeed, brethren, as I have already said, would have been set free and crowned, even if the flesh, which was to die at some time, had died by that judgement. For we are all going to die: nor does anyone who desires to escape bring it about that he takes death away, but that he puts off the debt. This holds all men; this we are all going to pay, which we have drawn from Adam; and since we do not wish to die, from the exactor of this debt no release is granted, but a postponement is requested. Susanna, then, a devout woman and a chaste wife, was certainly going to die at some time: and if that 'some time' had been then, what would it have harmed her chastity, while the flesh was laid in the tomb, and chastity was given back to God and crowned by God? For do you think, brethren, that it pertains as it were to great merit if false witnesses do not prevail against the innocent? It is no great merit if false testimony does not prevail against the innocent. It would be a great merit if it had not prevailed against the Lord. But our Lord Jesus Christ Himself was crucified through the tongues of false witnesses. But those false witnesses indeed prevailed for an hour; what harm did they do to Him Who was to rise again? So by His own example our Lord God, in His flesh, in His weakness, and in the form of a servant, which He took up to set free the servant, to seek the fugitive, to redeem the captive, to loose the bound, to make of a servant a brother; coming in the form of a servant for this, He showed the servant an example, that he should not dread false witnesses, and, when they are believed, should not fear. For they can create a bad reputation; but they cannot kill a pure conscience. The three men were set free from the furnace of burning fire; their God was present; they walked about among harmless fires, burning around them and not burning them, and in that very walking they spoke praises to God, and, unharmed just as they had been thrown in, they came out; their God, then, was present (Dan. 3): was the God of the Maccabees absent (2 Macc. 7)? The former escaped, the latter soon burned: both were tested, these consumed in the flesh, those unharmed in the flesh; but both were crowned. That the three men escaped the flames was granted to Nebuchadnezzar, that he might believe in their God. For He Who could set them free openly could also crown them in secret. But

if He had crowned them in secret, He would not have set free the king who had raged. The safety of their bodies became the safety of his soul. They, by praising God, escaped, but present fires: he, by believing in God, escaped, but eternal hells. More, therefore, was granted to him than to them. But Antiochus, by whom the Maccabees were tortured, was not worthy that such things should be granted to him: therefore, when they had been consumed by fire and torments, he exulted: but he who exalts himself shall be humbled (Luke 18:14).

3. Mary set free from Joseph's false suspicion. He, then, Who set free Susanna, a chaste woman, a faithful wife, from the false testimony of the elders, Himself also set free the virgin Mary from the false suspicion of her husband. That virgin, then, was found pregnant, to whom a man had not gone in. Her womb indeed had swelled with offspring; but her virginal integrity had remained. She had conceived by faith the Sower of faith; she had taken into her own body God, Who had not permitted her body to be violated: yet to her husband, as being a man, she came under suspicion. He believed to be from elsewhere what he knew was not from himself, and so he suspected adultery from elsewhere. He is corrected by an angel. Why was he worthy to be corrected by an angel? Because there was not in him a malevolent suspicion: such as the Apostle says are the malevolent suspicions that arise among brethren (1 Tim. 6:4). Malevolent suspicions belong to slanderers, benevolent suspicions belong to those who govern. It is permitted to anyone to suspect ill of a son; but it is not permitted to slander a son: you do indeed suspect evil; but you wish to find good. He who suspects benevolently desires to be proved wrong: for then he truly rejoices, when what he suspected ill has been found false. Such was Joseph towards his wife, with whom he had not been joined in body, but to whom he had nevertheless already been united by faith. The virgin, then, also came under false suspicion: but as the Spirit was present for Susanna in Daniel, so the angel was present for Mary. The angel said to Joseph: Do not fear to take Mary your wife: for what is born of her is of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18–20). The suspicion was taken away, because redemption was found.

4. The chastity of virgins and of the married: each has a reward, unequal but eternal. The yoke of Christ is gentle and the burden light to those who love. A little while ago the married women were rejoicing at Susanna; let the virgins rejoice at Mary: let both hold fast to chastity; the former to conjugal, the latter to virginal. For each chastity has merit with God: although the virginal is greater, the conjugal lesser; yet each is pleasing to God, because it is the gift of God. All attain to eternal life; but in eternal life not all obtain the same honour, the same dignity, the same merit. Eternal life and the kingdom of God will be like what, for the sake of a comparison, we call the sky. In the sky are all the stars: so too in the kingdom of God all the good faithful will be. Eternal life will be equal for all: for there one does not live more, another less; since all of us shall live without end. This is the denarius which the labourers are to receive, both those who laboured in the vineyard from early morning and those who came at the eleventh hour (Matt. 20:9–10): that denarius is eternal life, which is equal for all. But look at the sky, remember the Apostle: Other bodies

celestial, and others terrestrial. One is the glory of the sun, and another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory: so also is the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:40–42). Therefore let each one, my brothers, according to the gift which he has received, strive in this age, that he may rejoice in the age to come. Are you married? Your life is lower; hope for a lower reward; yet do not despair of the eternal kingdom. The precepts of marriage must be kept by you. For what then, because you have a wife, ought you not to recognize that you are a pilgrim in this world, ought you not to reflect that you are going to die, that you are going to depart from the bed of pleasure? And see where in any case you are heading, to the torment of calamity, or to the reward of eternity. Think, then, keep what you have received, carry your burden: for it is light, if you love it; heavy, if you hate it. For not in vain did the Lord say, nor truly when He said this was He speaking to the continent alone: Come to Me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me that I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls: not for your bodies, but for your souls. For My yoke is gentle, and My burden is light (Matt. 11:28–30): light to the one who loves, heavy to the one who refuses. Have you taken the Lord's yoke upon your neck? It is gentle, if you strive well; harsh, if you struggle against it. Temptations surround married life. For was this Susanna, then, not tempted in her very chastity because she was joined to a husband? Are these women alone not tempted in this respect, who are united to husbands? See, Susanna was another man's wife, she had a husband: yet she was tempted, she was tossed about in the storm. Straits, she says, are on every side of me. For she feared to die at the hands of false witnesses: but at the hands of God, the true judge, she feared to die utterly. For at the hands of false witnesses she would die for a time: by God the judge she would be punished for eternity. She weighed it, she chose: first she feared, and weighed; she weighed, and chose; she chose, and conquered. She taught devout married women, taught them to resist the tempter, taught them to fight, taught them to labour, taught them to implore help.

5. Susanna, an example for women. One must act so that not only the life may be good, but also the reputation unharmed. If Scripture is so great a witness concerning a woman, has it abandoned men? Has it allowed them to lack an example for imitation? We were watching Susanna tempted by men who lusted for her corruption, we were watching her contending. That reading was the theatre of our heart; we were watching for God's athlete, a chaste spirit; we saw her contending with the adversary; let us triumph with the victress over the vanquished. Devout wives have their example, they have something to imitate. Let them owe to God what they keep, not to man: for then do they keep it, if they owe it to God; then do they keep it, if they owe it to Him Who sees what they keep, which even the husband does not see. For often the husband is absent, God is always present: and sometimes, because the husband is a man, he suspects falsely; then let the woman pray for her husband who suspects falsely; let her pray that he may be saved, not that he may be condemned. For a husband's false suspicion does not close the eyes of God. Her conscience is naked before Him Who creates it. For He Himself sets free for eternity the woman oppressed for a time. But let her pray for

her husband, and let her take pains to have not only a good life but also an unharmed reputation. For chastity itself frees a good life from being condemned; but a good reputation frees others from slipping by suspecting falsely, and perhaps falling into sin while they judge what they do not see: just as those judges fell, and holy Daniel, or rather the Lord through Daniel, freed those judges, more than Susanna, from inner death. For He freed her from being condemned for a time; but He freed them from falling, by judging wickedly and condemning an innocent woman, into the eternal punishment of that Judge Whom no one can corrupt, from Whom no one can hide himself.

6. Joseph an example of chastity for men. I was speaking, then, about men, saying that they too have not been left without an example. Chaste men, men who fear God, men for whom their own wives suffice; men who do not violate what you do not want violated for yourselves; men who have rendered the fidelity which you have demanded: you too wait, while I call it to mind, for what your wives were waiting for while the reader was reciting. Divine Scripture has not left you without an example either. They heard of Susanna, and rejoiced in her as she conquered: you, pay attention to Joseph; not that Joseph to whom the Virgin Mary, who bore Christ, had been betrothed; for he was tried by suspicion, and was soon healed by an angel. Holy Scripture bears witness to another Joseph, whom an unchaste woman tempted: she loved a handsome man, not with a chaste but with a perverse mind, where she had no eyes, where spiritual and invisible beauty might be seen; the man whom she loved as handsome, she did not want as chaste. She loved another's man, she loved her husband's slave: but him keeping faith with his master she did not love. Do you think she loved him, or rather herself? I think that [she loved] neither him nor herself. For if she loved him, why did she want to destroy him? If she loved herself, why did she want to perish? See, I have proved that she did not love. She was burning with the poison of lust, she was not shining with the flame of charity. But he knew how to see what she did not know. He was more beautiful within than without; more beautiful in the light of the heart than in the skin of the flesh: where that woman's eyes did not penetrate, there he enjoyed his own beauty. Gazing, then, upon the inner beauty of chastity, when would he allow it to be stained, when to be violated by that woman's temptation? She loved; but he loved too: and what he loved was greater than what she loved; because he saw what she did not see.

7. Even the unchaste themselves love chastity in others. If you wish to see in some way the spiritual beauty of chastity, if you have eyes of any kind for it, I put something before you by way of example: you love it in your own wife. Do not, then, hate in another man's wife what you love in your own. What is it that you love in your own? Chastity, surely. This you hate in another's wife, which you love in your own: this you hate in another's wife, whose chastity you want to destroy by lying with her. What you love in your own, do you want to kill this in another's? What you love in your own, do you want to destroy this in another's? How will you have the prayer of piety, you murderer of chastity? Keep, then, in another's wife what you desire to be kept in your own: love chastity itself rather than flesh. But perhaps you think that you are a lover of the flesh of the wife

of yours, not of chastity. A sordid thought indeed; but I do not let you go without an example. For I think that you love chastity in your spouse more than flesh. But to show you most completely that you are a lover of chastity rather than of flesh: you love this in your daughter. Who among men is there who would not want his daughters to be chaste? Who among men is there who does not rejoice in the chastity of his daughters? Surely you do not love flesh there too? Surely you do not lust after a beautiful body, where you shudder at incest? See, I have proved that you are a lover of chastity. If, then, I have shown you to be a lover of chastity, how have you offended yourself, that you do not love it in yourself? See, you have a short way: love in yourself what you love in your daughter; love this in another man's wife, because your daughter too will be another man's wife. Love chastity, then, in yourself as well. If you love another man's wife, you will not have her at once; if you love chastity, you will have it straightaway. Love chastity, then, so that you may have eternal happiness.

8. Out of love of modesty one must resist in temptation, after the example of Susanna and Joseph. But perhaps you will be tempted: a shameless woman will love you, she will find you alone, she will try to wrest an embrace from you; if you refuse, she will threaten you with punishment by defaming you. This the false elders did to Susanna; this his master's wife did to holy Joseph. But look to Him to Whom both Susanna and Joseph looked. Because there is no witness, is God therefore not there? Joseph would not offend His eyes, the eyes of his Lord, Who was present. He would not consent to the shameless woman for unlawful intercourse. He repelled another's lust, he embraced his own modesty. Yet she did what she had threatened: she lied to her husband; she was believed by her husband. God was still patient. Joseph is handed over to prison; he is kept under guard as one guilty, he by whom God had not been offended; but God was not absent even there, because he was not guilty. The Lord was present to Joseph in his suffering: that He did not come to his aid quickly, He deferred for greater rewards (Gen. 39; 41). He rightly gladdened him whom He had exercised by punishment. For holy Joseph himself ought, for the sake of modesty itself, to suffer something hard too, that is, bitter. If perhaps he had loved that shameless woman herself, he would have been ready to endure hard things for her; and she would not have accepted his love towards her as proved, unless he bore such troublesome or hard things on her account, and so returned the favour to charity, nay not to charity, but to evil desire. She in turn would have burned for him, because she would see him burning with so great a love for her that for its sake he did not refuse to bear any punishments whatever. If this for a shameless woman, how much more for modesty itself? Well, then, does God sometimes defer His help: so as to prove a man, to exercise a man, so that the man may become known to himself. For nothing is hidden from God.

9. For the sake of modesty, pleasures and troubles are to be despised. This, then, I would urge upon your Charity, brethren: that above all, to carnal lusts and worldly joys and to vain and fleeting pomp, and to the vapour of this present life, you prefer the glory and beauty of wisdom; that you prefer the sweetness and pleasantness of wisdom; that you prefer the glory of modesty, the beauty

of chastity. All these things are hidden in the heavenly treasury; bare before the eyes of God, these are precious gems, they shine brightly; if you have eyes, you see. Prefer these, then, to the various and unlawful delights; and if temptation should come so far that you even suffer trouble, my brothers, who does not suffer for the sake of his purse? who does not suffer for his field, for a single stone marking the boundary of his field? If you suffer for these things, which you do not have in your power to keep as long as you wish and to leave to whom you wish; but often they are lost while we live, often after our death they are possessed by those whom we hate: if for these goods (if indeed they are to be called goods, which do not make men good) men bear such great evils with an even mind, why are they sluggish for the faith? why are they fearful for the heavenly treasure? for those riches, which not even shipwrecks can take away from us? For the just man, shipwrecked, escapes rich and naked.

10. Job on the dunghill, how rich. Holy Job was full of these riches: all things perished at a single stroke; nothing had remained in his house of the things by which a little before he had seemed wealthy; suddenly a beggar, on the dunghill, swarming with worms from head to feet. What is more wretched than this wretchedness? What is happier than that inner happiness? He had lost all those things which God had given; but he had Him Who had given all things, God Himself. Naked, he says, I came out of my mother's womb, naked I shall return into the earth. The Lord gave, the Lord took away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done: blessed be the name of the Lord. Surely he is poor? surely he has nothing? If nothing remains, from what treasury were these gems of the praise of God brought forth? Afterwards the tempter came even as far as his flesh: when all things had been taken away, he left him the tempting woman. He left him Eve; but that man was not Adam. And how was he found there? how did he answer his wife when she suggested blasphemy? You have spoken, he says, as one of the foolish women. If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why do we not bear evil things (Job 1 and 2)? O man putrid and whole! O foul and beautiful! O wounded and sound! O sitting on the dunghill and reigning in heaven! If we love him, let us imitate him; that we may imitate him, let us labour; and if in labour we falter, let us implore help. He Who proclaimed the contest helps the one who contends. For God does not await you as you contend in the way the people await a charioteer: they know how to shout, they do not know how to help. God does not await you as you contend in the way the president of the games awaits an athlete: he prepares a crown of hay, he does not know how to supply strength to one who labours; nor indeed can he, for he is a man, not God. And perhaps while he waits, he labours more by sitting than the other by wrestling. For God, when He awaits His contenders, helps them when He is called upon: for it is the voice of His athlete in the Psalm, If I said, My foot is moved; Thy mercy, O Lord, helped me (Ps. 93:18). Let us not then be sluggish, my brothers: let us ask, let us seek, let us knock. For everyone who asks receives, and one who seeks will find, and to one who knocks it will be opened (Matt. 7:8).