You ask me, dearest Nepotian, to set out for you life, showing how once in the world’s army to become a clergyman may keep to the straight path of Christ and not be led astray into the haunts of vice.

Listen then, as the blessed Cyprian says, to words that are weighty rather than elo­quent: listen to one who is your brother in orders and your father in years, one who can guide you from faith’s cradle to perfect manhood, and by setting forth precepts of life step by step may instruct others in instructing you.

Living up to Your Calling⤒🔗

A clergyman, a servant in Christ’s Church, should first know the meaning of his name, and when he has that accurately defined he should then strive to be what he is called.

For since the Greek kleros means “lot” or “portion” the clergy are so named, either because they are the Lord’s portion, or else because the Lord is theirs.

So I implore you, do not think that cler­ical orders are but a variety of your old mil­itary service. Do not look for worldly gain when you are fighting in Christ’s army, lest, having more than when you first became a clergyman, you hear it said of you: “Their portions (kleroi) shall not profit them” (Jer. 12:13). Let poor men and strangers be acquainted with your modest table, and with them Christ shall be your guest.

Avoid, as you would the plague, a cler­gyman who is also a man of business, one who has risen from poverty to wealth, from obscurity to a high position. “Evil commu­nications corrupt good manners.” You despise gold; the other loves it. You tram­ple money underfoot; he pursues it. You delight in silence, peacefulness, solitude; he prefers talking and arrogance, the markets and the streets and the apothecaries’ shops. When your ways are so diverse, what unity of heart can there be between you?

Ministering to Women←⤒🔗

To all maidens show the same disregard or the same affection. A woman’s foot should seldom or never cross the threshold of your lodging. Do not remain under the same roof with them; do not trust your chastity in the past. You cannot be a man more saintly than David or more wise than Solomon.

If you are ill, let one of the brethren attend you, or else your sister or your mother or some woman of universally approved faith. I know of some whose bodily recovery coincided with spiritual sickness. There is danger for you in the ministrations of one whose face you are continually watching.

If in the course of your clerical duties you have to visit a widow or a virgin, never enter the house alone, and let your associ­ates be men whose fellowship brings no disgrace.

If a reader or acolyte or psalm-singer comes with you, let his character, not his dress, be his adornment; let him not wave his hair with curling tongs but let his out­ward looks be a guarantee of his chastity.

Never sit alone and without witnesses with a woman in a quiet place. If there is anything intimate she wants to say, have her bring with her a nurse, an elderly virgin, some widow or married woman — she can­not be so cut off from human society as to have no one but yourself to whom she can trust her secret.

Beware of men’s suspicious thoughts, and if a tale about your behaviour can be invented with some probability, avoid giv­ing the scandalmonger his opportunity. Frequent gifts of handkerchiefs and ties, pressing a woman’s dress to your lips, tast­ing her food beforehand, writing her fond and flattering notes — of all this a holy love knows nothing. “My honey, my light, my darling” — all such wanton playfulness and ridiculous courtesy, makes us blush when we hear it on the stage and seems detestable even on the lips of worldlings. How much more loathsome is it then in the case of clergymen.

I say this not because I fear such errors in you or in any holy man. Both good and bad people are to be found, and to con­demn the bad is to praise the good.

Relating to Superiors←⤒🔗

Be obedient to your bishop, and respect him as your spiritual father. Sons love, slaves fear.

But even bishops should realise they are priests, not lords; they should give to cler­gymen the honour that is their due, so that the clergy may offer them the respect proper to bishops. The orator Domitius spoke to the point when he said: “Why should I treat you as a leader of the Senate, when you do not treat me as a senator?”

It is a very bad custom in some churches for presbyters to be silent and to refrain from speech in the presence of bishops, on the ground that these latter would either be jealous of them or think it unbecoming to be listeners.

The apostle Paul says:

If anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace. For ye may all proph­esy one by one that all may learn and all may be comforted; and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace.

A wise son is a glory to his father; and a bishop should rejoice in his own good judg­ment, when he chooses such to be priests of Christ.

The Perils of Preaching←⤒🔗

When you are preaching in church, try to evoke not applause but lamentation. Let the tears of your audience be your glory.

A presbyter’s discourse should be sea­soned by his reading of Scripture. Be not a declaimer nor a ranter nor a gabbler, but show yourself skilled in God’s mysteries and well acquainted with the secret mean­ing of his words.

Only ignorant men like to roll out phrases and to excite the admiration of the unlettered crowd by the quickness of their utterance.

Effrontery often tries to explain things of which it knows nothing, and having per­suaded others, claims knowledge for itself. My former teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus, when I asked him to explain the meaning of St. Luke’s phrase deuteroproton, that is, “second first” sabbath (Luke 6:1), wittily evaded my request. “I will tell you about that in church,” he said. “And there, when all the people applaud me, you will be com­pelled to know what you do not know, or else, if you alone remain unconvinced, you will undoubtedly be put down by everyone as a fool!”

There is nothing so easy as to deceive a cheap mob or an ignorant congregation by smooth talk; anything such people do not understand they admire all the more.

Gifts and Benevolences←⤒🔗

We ought to love every Christian household as though it were our own. Let them know us as comforters in their sorrows rather than as guests in their days of prosperity. A clergyman soon becomes an object of contempt, if, however often he is invited to dinner, he does not refuse.

We should never ask for gifts, and sel­dom accept them even when begged to do so. Somehow or other the very man who offers you a present holds you the cheaper for accepting it; if you refuse, it is strange how much more admiration for you he feels.

When you have received money to be spent on the poor, to be cautious with it while crowds are hungry, or (what is most obvious villainy) to take any of it for your­self, is to surpass the cruelty of the worst robber. While I am racked with hunger, are you to judge how much will satisfy my cravings? Either distribute immediately what you have received, or else, if you are a timid almoner, dismiss the donor to hand out his own gifts.

Your deeds must not belie your words, lest, when you are speaking in church, someone may say to himself, “Why do you not practice what you preach?” A teacher fond of good living may fill his own stom­ach and then discourse on the benefits of fasting; even a robber can possibly accuse others of greed; but in a priest of Christ mind and mouth should be in harmony.

Wooing the Powerful←⤒🔗

Avoid entertaining the worldly at your table, especially those who are swollen with office. You are the priest of a crucified Lord, one who lived in poverty and on the bread of strangers, and it is a shameful thing for a consul’s attendants and bodyguard to keep watch before your door, and for a provincial judge to have a better luncheon with you than he would get in his palace.

If you claim that you do this in order to plead for the unhappy and the oppressed, remember that a worldly judge pays more regard to a self-denying cleric than to a rich one; he respects your sanctity more than your wealth.

Or if he is the sort of man who only lis­tens to clergymen over the wine bowl, I will gladly forgo any benefit from him and will address my prayer to Christ, who is more able to help than any judge. For it is better to trust in the Lord than to put your confidence in men; it is better to fix your hopes in the Lord than to expect anything from princes.

Beware the Bequests←⤒🔗

The pagan priests who serve idols, actors, charioteers, and harlots can all inherit property. I am ashamed to say it, but clergymen and monks alone are by law debarred, a law passed not by persecutors but by Christian emperors (Valentinian, AD 368). I do not complain of the enact­ment, but it grieves me to think that we deserved it.

The law’s precaution is astern and pru­dent, yet even so greed is not checked. By a fiction of trusteeship we elude its provi­sions, and, as though imperial enactments were of more importance than Christ’s commands, we respect the laws and despise the Gospels.

If there must be an heir, let the Church inherit from the children who are her flock — the Church who bore, reared, and fed them. Why do we thrust ourselves in between mother and children? Why do we seek after an estate? It is the glory of a bishop to provide means for the poor, but it is a disgrace for any priest to think of wealth for himself.

I have been told that in some cases dis­graceful court is paid to old men and women who have no children. These servile flatterers fetch the basin, sit by the bed, and catch in their own hands stool and spittle. They tremble at the doctor’s appearance, and with quivering lips inquire if his patient is better.

If for a little while the old fellow plucks up some strength, they are at their wits’ end, and while they pretend to be glad, their greedy souls suffer torments within. For they are afraid that they may have wasted their attentions, and they compare an old man with a good hold on life to Methuselah.

How great would be their reward with the Lord, if they did not hope for immedi­ate profit. With what labour do they seek an empty inheritance! At less trouble they could have bought for themselves the pearl of Christ.

Food and Drink←⤒🔗

Never smell of wine, lest the philoso­pher’s words be said of you: “This is not a kiss but a wine sip.”

Priests who reek of wine are condemned by the apostle and forbidden by the old Law. Those who serve the altar must not drink either wine or intoxicating drink, the Law says. Anything that intoxicates and disturbs the mind’s balance you must avoid as you avoid wine.

I do not say that we should condemn a thing that God made, since indeed our Lord was called a winebibber, and Timothy was allowed wine in moderation because of his weak stomach; but I claim that those who drink wine should have some reason of age or health or some peculiarity of constitution.

If even without wine I am all aglow, if I feel the fire of youth and am inflamed by hot blood, if I am of a strong and lusty habit of body, then I will readily forgo the wine cup, in which I may well suspect that poison lurks. The Greeks have a pretty proverb which perhaps in our language loses some of its force: “A fat paunch never breeds fine thoughts.”

Though I was born in a humble home beneath the roof of a country cottage and once could scarcely get enough millet and coarse bread to satisfy the howlings of my stomach, yet now I know the various kinds of fish and their different names, I can tell for certain on what coast an oyster has been picked, I can distinguish by the taste from what province a bird comes. Such tastes can be a danger.

Impose upon yourself such fasting as you are able to bear. Let your fasts be pure, chaste, simple, moderate, and free from superstition. What good is it to abstain from oil and then to seek after food that is troublesome to prepare and difficult to get: dried figs, pepper, nuts, dates, wheat flour, honey, pistachios? All the resources of the garden are stored up to avoid eating ordi­nary bread.

Some people outrage nature and neither drink water nor eat bread but imbibe fancy decoctions of pounded herbs and beet juice, using shell to drink from, in place of a cup. Shame on us! By such fancifulness we seek a reputation for abstinence. We do not blush at such silliness, and we feel no disgust at such superstition.

Compliments and Criticisms←⤒🔗

Beware of angling for compliments, lest you lose God’s favour in exchange for the people’s praise. “If I yet pleased men,” says the apostle, “I should not be the servant of Christ.” He ceased to please men and became Christ’s servant. Through good and bad report on right hand and on left, Christ’s soldier marches; he is not elated by praise nor crushed by abuse; he is not puffed up by riches nor depressed by poverty; he discounts joy and sorrow alike.

Beware also of an itching tongue and ears: in other words, do not detract from others or listen to detractors. It is not a proper excuse to say, “If other people report something to me, I cannot be rude to them.” No one likes to bring reports to an unwilling listener. An arrow never lodges in a stone, but it sometimes recoils and wounds the shooter.

Let detractors, seeing your reluctance to listen, learn not to be so ready to detract. Solomon says: “Meddle not with them that are given to criticism: for their calamity shall rise suddenly, and who knoweth the destruction of them both?” — the destruc­tion, that is, both of the detractor and of the person who lends ear to him.

Confidentiality←⤒🔗

It is part of your duty to visit the sick, to be acquainted with people’s households, with matrons and their children, and to be entrusted with the secrets of the great. Let it therefore be your duty to keep your tongue chaste as well as your eyes. Never discuss a woman’s looks nor let one house know what is going on in another.

Hippocrates, before he will instruct his pupils, makes them take an oath and com­pels them to swear obedience to him. That oath exacts from them silence and pre­scribes for them their language, gait, dress, and manners.

How much greater an obligation is laid on us who have been entrusted with the healing of souls! I have written not as an adversary but as a friend. I have not inveighed against sinners; I have only coun­seled people not to sin. I have judged myself as strictly as I judge them and have cast out the beam from my own eye before I tried to remove a mote from my neigh­bour’s.

I have hurt no one (at least no one has been marked out for special mention), and my discourse has not attacked individuals but has been a general criticism of weak­nesses. If anyone insists on being angry with me, he confesses thereby that in his case the cap fits.