17.

Men often discuss the comparative merits of life in solitude and life in a community; and the preference is usually given to the first over the second. Still even for men there is always the risk that, being withdrawn from the society of their fellows, they may become exposed to unclean and godless imaginations, and in the fulness of their arrogance and disdain may look down upon everyone but themselves, and may arm their tongues to detract from the clergy or from those who like themselves are bound by the vows of a solitary life. ¹ Of such it is well said by the psalmist, “as for the children of men their teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.” ² Now if all this is true of men, how much more does it apply to women whose fickle and vacillating minds, if left to their own devices, soon degenerate. I am myself acquainted with anchorites of both sexes who by excessive fasting have so impaired their faculties that they do not know what to do or where to turn, when to speak or when to be silent. Most frequently those who have been so affected have lived in solitary cells, cold and damp. Moreover if persons untrained in secular learning read the works of able church writers, they only acquire from them a wordy fluency and not, as they might do, a fuller knowledge of the scriptures. The old saying is found true of them, although they have not the wit to speak, they cannot remain silent. They teach to others the scriptures that they do not understand themselves; and if they are fortunate enough to convince them, they take upon themselves airs as men of learning. ³ In fact, they set up as instructors of the ignorant before they have gone to school themselves. It is a good thing therefore to defer to one’s betters, to obey those set over one, to learn not only from the scriptures but from the example of others how one ought to order one’s life, and not to follow that worst of teachers, one’s own self-confidence. Of women who are thus presumptuous the apostle says that they “are carried about with every wind of doctrine, ⁴ ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” ⁵