But if you persist in the crime, you will lose both your husband and your children together." And so everything was literally fulfilled, and the unfortunate woman's quick death was a sign that she was too late in repentance. Thus Christ punishes those who defile His temple; thus warns against expensive stones and the most precious ornaments. I have given this story, not out of a desire to mock calamities, but in order to remind us with what fear and caution one should fulfill the solemn vows given to God.

The priest Eli was subjected to the wrath of God for the vices of his children (see: 1 Samuel 2-3). A bishop cannot be one who has incontinent and disobedient children (cf. 1 Tim. 3:4). And vice versa, it is written about a woman that she will be saved through childbearing, if she continues in faith and love and in holiness with chastity (1 Tim. 2:15). If the way of life of children of full age and those who have gone beyond the father's authority is imputed to parents, then how much more is the responsibility of parents for their age, infant and weak, which, according to the Lord, does not know the right and left hands, that is, the difference between good and evil? If you watch over your daughter with care, lest the viper bite her, why do you not watch with the same care, lest the hammer of the whole earth smite her (Jeremiah 50:23), so that she does not drink from the golden cup of Babylon, so that she does not go out with Dinah, seeking the acquaintance of the daughters of a foreign land (Gen. 34:1), and flirts with her feet, Didn't you drag tunics behind her? Poisons are given only in honey; and vices deceive only under the guise and pretext of virtue! And how, you may ask, is it said that children are not responsible for the vices of their fathers, and fathers for the vices of their children, but that the soul that sins shall die (Ezek. 18:20)? This is said about those who can understand things themselves, about those about whom it is said in the Gospel: He Himself is in perfect years... let him speak of himself (John 9:21). And those who are still very young and have meaning, little ones, all his good and bad are imputed to his parents, until he enters the years of wisdom and until the letter of Pythagoras leads him to the crossroads. Do you not think that the children of Christians who have not received baptism are only guilty of sin, and those who did not want to give it, and it is not imputed to it as a crime, did not want to accept it at such a special time, when those who had it could not contradict it, while the salvation of children benefits the parents as well? Whether to offer a daughter (as a gift to God) or not, it was in your power (since your position was different: you doomed her before you conceived); but as soon as you have dedicated it, negligence about it threatens you with danger. Whoever sacrifices the lame and the mutilated, and stained with any uncleanness, is guilty of sacrilege (Lev. ch. 22) — how much greater punishment will he suffer who prepares a part of his body and the purity of a chaste soul for the embrace of the King, and does so with negligence?

And when she begins to grow up and, in the image of her Bridegroom, to be strengthened in wisdom, in years, and in grace with God and men, let her go to the temple of the true Father with her parents; but let him not go out of the temple with them. Let them seek it on the path of peace between the crowds and the multitude of relatives, and let them never find it anywhere except in the sanctuary of the Scriptures, which learns from the prophets and apostles about spiritual marriages. Let her imitate Mary, whom Gabriel found alone in her bedroom, and who, perhaps, was greatly horrified because she saw a man whom she was not accustomed to see. Let him imitate Her, of whom it is said: "All glory is to the daughter of the king within" (Psalm 44:14). Let she, too, wounded by love, say of the Beloved: "The King hath brought me into his palaces" (Song of Songs 1:3). Never let her go out, lest those who go round the city meet her, beat her, wound her, take away the veil of modesty, and leave her naked, covered with blood; it is better for her to knock at His (the Bridegroom's) door with others and say: I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers... I have washed my feet; how can I soil them" (Ode 8:10; 5:3).

She should not dine in society, that is, at the feasts of her parents, so that she does not see the food that she could desire. Though some think it a great virtue to despise real pleasures, yet I think it is safer for abstinence not to know what you might aspire to. Once, as a boy, I read in schools: "It will be difficult for you to fight what you have allowed yourself to be accustomed to." Someone will say: therefore, one should no longer drink wine at this time, because there will be intemperance in this? For the weak, before reaching adulthood, abstinence is both dangerous and difficult. Until then, if necessity requires, let her go to the baths, let her drink wine in moderation for the sake of the stoma, let her eat meat as well, so that her legs do not weaken before she has to flee. But I say this out of condescension, and not as if I were giving a prescription, I say it for fear of exhaustion, and I do not teach an intemperate life.

The same grace must be accompanied by the same podvig. Let her be deaf to music. She should not know why the flute, the lyre, the harp exist.

Every day she has to present her lesson to you like a bunch of flowers drawn from the Scriptures. Let him learn Greek verses. But at the same time, let her also study Latin; if a delicate language is not accustomed to it from the very beginning, foreign sounds will spoil speech, and the native language will unpleasantly strike the ear with errors peculiar to a foreigner. Be her teacher; Let a young child imitate you. Neither in you nor in her father should she see anything that she could sin by imitating. Remember that you are the girl's parents and that you can teach her more by examples than by words. Flowers quickly wither; quickly the destructive wind dries violets, lilies and saffron. In public places, she should never appear without you. Let him not enter the basilicas of the martyrs and the churches without you. No young man, no curly-haired man should smile at her. Our girl should celebrate the days of vigils and solemn all-night vigils so that she does not leave her mother by a hair's breadth. I would not wish that she loved any of her maids so much that she whispered to her in secret. What she says to one, everyone should know. Let him choose as his companion not a dapper and beauty, who would sing songs pleasantly with a smooth throat, but a serious, pale, poorly dressed, somewhat sad woman. An old maiden of tested faith and morals should be assigned to her, who would teach her and teach her by her own example to get up at night for prayer and psalms, to sing hymns in the morning, at the third, sixth, and ninth hours, to stand up for podvig, as befits an ascetic of Christ, and when the lamp is lit, to offer the evening sacrifice. So the day will pass, so the night will find her toiling. Prayer will be followed by reading, and reading will be followed by prayer. The time occupied by such a variety of activities will seem short.

Let her learn to cook flax, hold a moo, carry a basket on her belt, spin a spindle, and lead a thread with her fingers. Let him learn to divide the fabric of the silkworm, the wool of the grays, and the gold into flexible threads. Let him prepare garments that protect him from the cold, and not those that expose the clothed body. Its food should be vegetables and the like, and occasionally fish; and in order not to go into the exposition of the rules concerning the use of food, of which I have spoken in more detail elsewhere, I will remark that she should eat in such a way that she always feels a certain hunger, so that immediately after eating she can read and sing psalms. I do not like long and immoderate fasts in very young years, fasts that last for whole weeks and during which it is forbidden to eat both oil and vegetables. From experience, I learned that a young donkey, tired on the way, makes turns from the road. This is what the worshippers of Isis and Cybele do; in gluttonous abstinence they devour pheasants and smoking turtledoves, in order, you see, not to defile the gifts of Ceres. This should always be a rule for fasting, so that, in spite of the long fast, the strength will always remain equal, and so that, having run the first team, we will be able to run the other. However, as I wrote before, on the Forty Days of Fast, the sails of abstinence must be stretched and the driver must loosen all the reins of the hurrying horses. However, the position of a layman is different, the position of a virgin and a monk is different. A worldly person on the Forty Days reduces the gluttony of the womb and, like a snail, feeding on his own juice, prepares the abdomen for future sumptuous dinners and gluttony. The virgin and the monk must drive their horses on the Forty Days, not forgetting at the same time that they will always have to ride them. Work limited by time should be longer; work that is not limited to a certain time is more moderate. In the first case, we rest, in the latter, we continue our journey without stopping.

If you move to a country house, do not leave your daughter at home; even if she does not know how to live without you, and will not be able to live without you; Let her tremble with fear if she is left alone. She should not talk to secular people; she should not have fellowship with bad maidens. She should not be present at slave marriages and should not take part in noisy games. I know that some forbade the virgin of Christ to wash with eunuchs and married women: because the former do not lose their masculine dispositions, and the latter, with the fullness of the belly in pregnancy, acquaint with shameful things. And I, for my part, do not approve of baths for a young girl at all; it should be ashamed of itself, and it should be impossible for it to see itself naked. If it dries up its body by vigilance and fasting and throws it into slavery; if she wants to extinguish the flame of lust and all the excitements of ebullient age with the cold of abstinence; If, having accustomed herself to austere simplicity, she tries to erase natural beauty, then why should she, on the contrary, stir up sleeping fires by poultices in the baths?

Instead of precious stones and silk, she should love the Divine Scriptures; not a scarlet cloth of gold and Babylonian wool, but a careful and diligent study of those who pertain to the faith should captivate her. Let him first of all study the Psalter and console himself with its songs; in the Proverbs of Solomon, let him study the science of life. From Ecclesiastes she will acquire the habit of despising worldly things. In the Book of Job he will find examples of virtue and patience. When he comes to the Gospels, let him never let them go out of his hands again. She must deeply impress the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles in her heart. And when the storehouse of his heart is enriched with these treasures, let him exercise his memory on the Prophets, the Pentateuch, the Books of Kings, Chronicles, and also Ezra and Esther. And let him study the book of the Song of Songs, without fear, at the conclusion of everything; This is so that, when she reads it first, she does not harm her soul, not being able to understand that under the sensual images is the marriage song of spiritual marriage. She must beware of any apocrypha. And if she ever wanted to read them, not for the sake of the truth of the teaching, but for the sake of respect for their titles, let her know that these are not the books of the persons to whom they are attributed in the titles, that there are many errors in them, and that great prudence is needed to know how to pick gold out of the mud. She should always have Cyprian's work at hand. Let him read the letters of Athanasius and the books of Hilary without hindrance. It should be carried away by the judgments and animated speech of only those writers in whose books there are no traces of wavering in faith. The rest she must read in such a way as to judge them more than to assimilate them on faith.

You will say: how will I have time to look after all this, I, a woman of the world, in such a crowd as in Rome? In such a case, do not take upon yourself a burden that is beyond your strength, but having weaned her from the breast, as Isaac was weaned, and dressed her as Samuel, you went to your grandmother and aunt. Give the most precious stone on Mary's bed, put it in the cradle of Jesus, the weeping Child. Let her be brought up in a monastery, enter into the ranks of virgins, do not know what an oath is, consider falsehood to be sacrilege, have no concept of the world, live like an angel, be in the body as if without a body, the whole human race imagines to resemble her, and in order not to dwell on other things, let her at least free you from the difficulty of supervision and the danger of protection. It is better for you to be bored in her absence than to be afraid at any event: will she say something, to whom will she talk, to whom she nods, to whom she looks with pleasure? Give the little one to Eustochia, her every cry is a plea to you for it. Give Eustochia a companion in a holy life, a future heiress. Let the little one see her, love her, marvel at her from the first years — her, whose speech, gait, and dress serve as the science of virtues. Let her go to the grandmother's bed, and let the grandmother repeat to her granddaughter what she has done for her daughter; By long experience she has learned to educate, protect, and teach virgins, and chastity is daily woven into her hundredfold crown. Happy maiden, happy Pavla Toksotsiev! Through the virtues of her grandmother and aunt, she is even more noble in holiness than in origin. Oh, that chance would lead you to see your mother-in-law and kinswoman, and to notice the great souls in their little bodies! I have no doubt that, due to your innate chastity, you would have warned your daughter and preferred the second law of the Gospel to the first sentence of God. Yes, you would cease to desire children more than other children, but would rather sacrifice yourself to God. But since there is a time to embrace, and a time to shrink from embraces (Ecclesiastes 3:5), and a woman has no authority over her own body (1 Corinthians 7:4), and in what [calling] he is called, brethren, in this let each one remain before God (1 Corinthians 7:24), and he who is under the yoke must flee so that he who is harnessed with him is not left in the mud,  "Then transfer to your children all that you would otherwise have shown on yourself." Hannah, having given to the tabernacle the son promised to God, did not take him back: she found it unseemly for the future prophet to grow up in her house, because she wanted to have other more children. Moreover, having conceived and given birth, she did not dare to come to the temple and appear before the face of God empty-handed before she had paid her due; and when she offered this kind of sacrifice, she returned home and bore five children to herself, because she bore the firstborn to God. Are you amazed at the happiness of the holy woman? Imitate her faith. If you send it to Paul, I give a solemn promise that I myself will personally be both her teacher and educator. I will carry her in my arms; although I am an old man, I will babble like a child; I will far surpass the philosopher of the world, because I will not teach the king of Macedonia, who is to perish by the poison of Babylon, but the servant and bride of Christ, in order to present her to the heavenly kingdoms.

To Marcella. About Onaz

Doctors called surgeons are considered cruel, and they are miserable. Is it not a misfortune to sympathize with the wounds of others, to cut dead limbs without mercy, to perform an operation without shuddering that terrifies the sufferer, and for this to be considered an enemy? Such is human nature; Truth is bitter to her, and vices seem pleasant to her. Isaiah was not ashamed to walk naked in the image of the captivity to come (Isaiah 20:2-3). Jeremiah is sent from among Jerusalem to the Mesopotamian river Euphrates, in order to lay down his belt among the hostile nations, where the Assyrians live and the hordes of the Chaldeans are located (Jeremiah ch. 13). Ezekiel is commanded to eat bread made from various vegetables and sprinkled with human droppings, then cow droppings (Ezekiel 4), and sees his wife's death without tears (Ezekiel 24). Amos is expelled from Samaria (see Amos ch. 7).

For what? Of course, for the very fact that spiritual doctors, cutting through the ulcers of sins, call for repentance. The Apostle Paul says: "I have become your enemy, telling you the truth" (Gal. 4:16). And since the words of the Savior seemed cruel, many of His disciples went backwards. It is also not surprising that we, rebelling against vice, insult people.