Fulgentius of Ruspe, Letters

had you not been forestalled by the freely given love of the Bridegroom. And I said that you were forestalled not only by the love with which He loved you, but also by the love which He freely poured into you so that He might be loved by you. All, then, that you have in you of holy love towards your Bridegroom, you have indeed in you, but you do not have it from yourself. The richest Bridegroom took you poor; whatever good you have in you, you have not from yourself but from Him, and whatever you do not yet have, you will have then, when the Bridegroom gives Himself, Who has already given all the good things you have by His free bounty. To Him, then, give thanks humbly for what you have received; ask Him humbly for what you are to receive. For you have so rich a Bridegroom that He neither lacks what He has given, and abounds to bestow far better things (another reading: greater things) than He has given. Consider these things always with humble compunction, and keep the virginity which you have vowed to God not only by integrity of the flesh, but also by humility of heart, ever asking the keeping of your virginity and humility from Him Who will not slumber nor sleep, He Who keeps Israel (Ps. 120:4).

38. See, holy daughter, as far as the Lord has granted, I have written for you a short book on virginity and humility, choosing rather to send a few things to you who desired them than to deny the bride of the Lord the duty of the service I owe.

LETTER IV.

TO PROBA.

On prayer to God, and compunction of heart.

To the lady most venerable in Christ, and to be named with all honour, the handmaid of God, his daughter Proba, Fulgentius, servant of the servants of Christ: greeting in the Lord.

CHAPTER I. Proba's humility to be imitated by all. — 1. I received the letter of your holiness with my whole heart's rejoicing, for it displays by sure signs not only zeal for good work but also the humility of your heart. It is well, then, holy daughter, to the praise of God, that you are not lifted up by the wind of pride over good works, but declare yourself weak and powerless to fulfil the Lord's precepts. So ought everyone to think who desires to be not a forgetful hearer of the word of God but a doer of the work (Jas. 1:25), who looks to receive his reward not here from men but from God in the day of recompense; who is not carried away in the present time by the vanity of empty glory, but is set on fire by the holy fire of divine love. For this fire Christ came to cast upon the earth (Luke 12:49), to burn up every shoot of pride and to put into the humbled heart the fervour of holy compunction. So it comes about that in our sins we truly accuse ourselves, and in our good works we praise God with true humility of heart; that we ascribe to Him what His kindness gives us, and impute to ourselves the things in which our weakness provokes Him.

CHAPTER II. Prayer and compunction of heart to be begged from God, that He may pour them in. How God is the author of our good work. — 2. And since He is often offended by us, it is necessary that He be appeased by frequent prayer and constant compunction of heart. For compunction

of heart stirs up the affection of prayer, and humble prayer earns divine help; compunction of heart looks at its own wounds, while prayer begs the remedy of health. And who is fit for these things? For who could even pray fittingly, unless the Physician Himself pours in the beginning of spiritual desire? Or who could persevere in prayer, unless God increases in us what He has begun, nourishes what He has sown, and, His mercy following after, brings to the effect (another reading: fruit) of perfection what, His mercy going before, He freely gave to the unworthy? For so the merit of good work will be able not to perish for us, if God, its author and helper, is always glorified in the work.

3. Nor let us think that He is to be reckoned the author of good work in this way, as though only at the very beginning of creation God had so given human nature the capacity for good work that, when His help ceased, nature by itself alone could will or do any good whatever; since it could not accomplish this by its own effort alone even in the first man himself, when it had not yet been vitiated by sin. How then will it, being sick, be able to restore its health without the Physician's aid, when, while it was sound, it could not keep its health?

4. Let not earth and ashes boast, then, because in its life it has cast away its inward parts; nor let the wounded man exult as though sound over what he thinks sound in himself; but let him consider the putrefaction of his wounds with the humility of a contrite heart, so that, crying out with the prophet: My scars have putrefied and grown worse because of my foolishness (Ps. 37:6), he may receive the remedy not by his own merit but by the free gift of divine kindness. For what does man have that he has not received? And if he has received it, why does he boast as though he had not received it (1 Cor. 4:7)? God alone, therefore, can give to all to whom He wills that whereby true salvation can be acquired; and therefore He alone can guard in the receiver what He has given: For unless the Lord guards the city, they watch in vain who guard it (Ps. 126:1). He, then, will not suffer the stealthy entry of the most wicked robber who does not lack the help of the watchful Lord: for He Himself will not slumber nor sleep, He Who guards Israel (Ps. 120:4).

CHAPTER III. In this life we ought always to make progress. Man cannot of himself, without the grace of God, do anything good, not even will it. — 5. Just as one who is making for his homeland always has ground to walk until he arrives, so we too, as long as we are placed in this mortal body and are on pilgrimage away from the Lord, have the present life as our road, on which we always have ground on which we can advance, until, God leading us, we are able to reach that eternal homeland of blessed immortality. It is, then, a mark of great blessedness so to live in the present world that every believer gives effort to spiritual progress, and yet never proudly ascribes this to his own powers, but with a humble heart asks unceasing protection of the gift received from God, from Whom flows not only the beginning but also the perfection of all good will.

6. For the preaching of the apostle James cannot be made void by any argument, when he says: Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights (Jas. 1:17). Nor can any man be fit either to think or to do any good whatever, unless he has been helped by the free gift of divine assistance: for it is God Who works in us both to will and to accomplish according to His good will (Phil. 2:13), as the Vessel of election affirms; by whose teaching we have also learned that, We are not fit to think anything from ourselves as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God (2 Cor. 3:5). He, then, supplies us with all sufficiency of good, Whose fullness is not lessened when He gives, Who kindly bestows on us every good that we may have it, and remains full in Himself without diminution: which neither angelic nor human nature can bring about, and so no substance which, though spiritual, is yet created. For everything that is created, just as before it was created it did not exist, so before it received it could not have; and just as it cannot subsist without the working of Him Who made it, so it cannot will or do good unless God deigns to help it continually. For from Him is the beginning of good will; from Him the capacity for good work, from Him perseverance in good conduct; from Him is given in the present world true humility of heart, and in the world to come the happiness of eternal recompense: so that they may be happy without end who are now humble without pretence, and do not lead themselves astray by vain puffing-up, but regard with fear and trembling the dangers of the present life, in which there can be no full security for the good, so that adversity creeps in the more easily when prosperity deceitfully displays itself.

CHAPTER IV. No one can escape the snares of the devil by himself without the grace of God. — 7. Nor is there any time in this life in which the enemy does not set a trap for men; from whose snare no one can escape by his own strength, unless God by His grace through Jesus Christ our Lord has deigned to free him. Therefore the Vessel of election, when he felt himself taken captive in the law of sin, cried out, saying: Unhappy man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 7:24–25). For this reason the prophet too declares that his feet are to be plucked out of the snare not by his own strength but by divine gift, saying: My eyes are ever towards the Lord, for He will pluck my feet out of the snare (Ps. 24:15). And in another place it is said thus, in the person of the saints whom, freed from the snare of this world, the Lord has deigned to bring over to eternal security and joy: Our soul has been snatched like a sparrow from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we are freed (Ps. 123:7).

CHAPTER V. No one is secure in this life. We must fight with prayer and compunction of heart. — 8. Nevertheless, so that each of us may know that his soul moves among adversities and the snares of the enemy, and may never grow torpid in this world with a harmful security, the same prophet

says: All the day I went about saddened, for my soul is filled with illusions, and there is no health in my flesh (Ps. 37:7–8). But what is it to go about saddened all the day, if not to be sad at the remembrance of sins through the whole time of this life? In what way is the soul filled with illusions, if not when it is shaken by frequent temptation of carnal desires? Though it does not yield to them by consent, it grows weary from the strain. For although the Lord gives help again and again to His own in the struggle, lest they fail, mortality, weighed down by the burden of its own infirmity, is nevertheless allowed to grow weary, so that, when it finds in itself no support of strength, it may quickly run back to beg the help of divine kindness.

9. Here, then, we conquer the adversary when we fight with tears, and prayers, and continual humility of heart. For it is written that The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds, and the Lord does not hold back until He hears (Sir. 35:21). The weeping of the humble, then, is the great destruction of carnal desire. Tears which come from compunction of heart both conquer the enemy and win for us the gift of triumphant joy. For those who go forth go and weep, sowing their seeds; they, coming back, will come with exultation, carrying their sheaves (Ps. 125:5–6). How well the holy prophet teaches that the seeds of good works must be watered by a river of tears! For no seeds sprout unless they have been watered; nor does fruit come from seed if it is deprived of the help of water. Therefore we too, if we wish to gather the fruits of our seeds, let us not cease to water our seeds with tears, which are to be shed with the heart rather than with the body. For this reason it is said to us through the prophet that we should rend our hearts and not our garments (Joel 2:13); which we can do then, namely when we remember that we often transgress, if not in deed, at least in thought. For the earthly dwelling weighs down the mind that thinks many things (Wis. 9:15); and our earth does not rest from bringing forth thorns and thistles for us (Gen. 3:17–18), nor can we come to eat our bread unless we are worn out by the sweat of the face and by fatigue.

CHAPTER VI. Our weariness in resisting desires. What it is to dash the little ones of Babylon against the rock. — 10. For we are wearied with sweat while we fight against our own cupidities: in conquering these the difficulty of the struggle is greater for this reason, that the hostility of carnal desire is begotten for the man who fights not from outside, from another, but from within, from himself; and it brings weariness on human weakness as it springs up, although it is conquered by the help of divine power. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: for these are opposed to one another, so that we do not do whatever things we will (Gal. 5:17). Hence it is that we are not yet wholly subject to God, because from us springs what resists the divine command. For although the good will in us, which makes us humble before God, is from the grace of God, not to us

†yet there is not lacking the rising of perverse desire, which makes us contumacious.

11. By the grace of God, then, we are already in part subject to God, but through our own fault we are still in part not submitted. For this reason it is said to the Hebrews that not yet are all things subject to Christ; for thus it stands: For in that He subjected all things to Him, He left nothing not subject to Him. But now we do not yet see all things subject to Him (Heb. 2:8). We are subject to God, therefore, in that, with Him working in us, we delight in the law of God according to the inner man. But we are not yet subject in that we see another law in our members fighting against the law of our mind, and taking us captive in the law of sin, which is in our members (Rom. 7:22–23). We are subject to God because by His mercy we are rescued from temptation; for we ourselves sing: By Thee I shall be rescued from temptation (Ps. 17:30); but we are not yet wholly subject, because The life of man upon earth is temptation (Job 7:1). We are subject to God in that He directs our steps according to His word, so that no iniquity may have dominion over us (Ps. 118:133); but we are not yet wholly subject, because in many things we all offend (Jas. 3:2). We are subject inasmuch as, by His gift, walking in the flesh we do not war according to the flesh (II Cor. 10:3); but we are not yet wholly subject, because, although we have from the gift of God that with the mind we serve the law of God, we have nevertheless from the remnants of sin that with the flesh we serve the law of sin. For this reason the Apostle says: So then I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin (Rom. 7:25).

12. For everyone who now lives justly serves indeed with the flesh the law of sin, while he feels carnal concupiscence being born in himself; but with the mind he serves the law of God, because he does not consent to that same carnal concupiscence. We serve with the flesh the law of sin while the sons of Babylon, being born, disquiet our soul; but we serve with the mind the law of God when those same little ones of Babylon are dashed against the rock. For Babylon is interpreted confusion, whose daughter is every carnal desire which confusion of heart begets. But as long as we are pilgrims in the body away from the Lord, this confusion thrusts its †little ones upon us. For from that confusion every perverse thought is born, which while still little is dashed against the rock when, overcome by the swift remembrance and help of Christ, it is trampled underfoot.

CHAPTER VII. We ought both to give thanks to God and to pour out continual prayers. — 13. Therefore, although we have reason why we ought to give thanks to God, because He subjected us to Himself by gratuitous mercy, that we might be humble, we have nevertheless reason why we ought to knock at the divine ears with continual prayers; because as long as we are in this mortal body, just as we cannot be without sin, so we are not yet able to show perfect humility to the divine commands. For this reason thanks are †indeed to be given to God, inasmuch as He grants us to work well, lest we be found ungrateful for His gifts; and