Letter 1: Not only the first of the letters but probably the earliest extant composition of Jerome (c. 370 A.D.). Innocent, to whom it is addressed, was one of the little band of enthusiasts whom Jerome gathered round him in Aquileia.

To Innocent You've asked me repeatedly, my dear Innocent, not to let pass in silence the extraordinary event that happened in our own time. I've resisted the task out of modesty -- and, I now think, with good reason -- convinced as I am of my inadequacy for it. Human language simply cannot match divine praise, and besides, idleness has rusted shut whatever small gift for expression I once possessed. But you fire back that in God's work we should measure not the result we can achieve but the spirit behind the attempt, and that a man who has believed in the Word can never truly be at a loss for words. So what am I to do? The task is beyond me, yet I don't dare refuse it. I'm a raw passenger suddenly put in command of a loaded ship. I've never so much as rowed a boat on a lake, and now I'm expected to navigate the roaring chaos of the Black Sea. The shores are dropping below the horizon; sky and water stretch in every direction; darkness hangs over the deep, the clouds are black as night, and only the whitecaps of foam break the gloom. You tell me to hoist the sails, let out the sheets, take the helm. Fine -- I obey. Since love can do anything, I'll trust the Holy Spirit to steer my course and take comfort whatever the outcome. If the surf carries our ship into the harbor we're aiming for, I'll cheerfully accept being called a poor pilot. And if my rough prose runs us aground in the crosscurrents of language, you can blame my lack of skill -- but you'll at least acknowledge my good intentions. To begin, then. Vercellae is a town in Liguria, not far from the foothills of the Alps -- once important, now half-empty and crumbling. The provincial governor was holding his judicial circuit there when a poor woman and her lover were hauled before him, charged with adultery by her husband, and both thrown into the horrors of prison. Shortly afterward they applied the torture to extract the truth. When the blood-crusted hook struck the young man's bruised flesh and tore furrows in his side, the wretched man sought to escape prolonged agony through a quick death. He falsely confessed his own guilt and dragged the woman into the charge with him. It seemed he was the most pitiable of men, and that his execution was just -- since he had left an innocent woman no way to defend herself. But the woman, stronger in courage if weaker in body, though her limbs were stretched on the rack and her filthy, prison-stained hands bound behind her, raised the only part of her the torturer couldn't chain -- her eyes -- toward heaven, and said through streaming tears: "You are my witness, Lord Jesus, from whom nothing is hidden, who test the heart and mind. You are my witness that I deny this charge not to save my life but because to lie is a sin. And you, wretched man -- if you're so determined to rush toward death, why must you destroy not one innocent person but two? I want to die too. I want to shed this body I despise. But not as an adulteress. I offer my neck. I welcome the gleaming sword without fear. But I will carry my innocence with me. The person who dies while resolved to live this way does not truly die." The governor, who had been feasting his eyes on this bloody spectacle, now -- like a wild animal that, once it tastes blood, always thirsts for more -- ordered the torture doubled. Gnashing his teeth, he threatened the executioner with the same punishment if he failed to wring from the weaker sex a confession that a man's strength had been unable to hold back. Send help, Lord Jesus! Against this one creature of yours, every species of torment is devised. She is tied by her hair to a stake. Her whole body is stretched tighter than ever on the rack. Fire is brought and pressed against the soles of her feet. Her sides quiver under the executioner's probe. Not even her breasts are spared. And still the woman holds firm. Triumphant in spirit over the agony of the body, she savors the joy of a clean conscience while the tortures rage around her in vain. The furious judge rises from his seat, defeated by passion. She keeps praying to God. Her joints are wrenched from their sockets; she only turns her eyes to heaven. Another man confesses what is presumed to be their shared guilt. She, for his sake, denies the confession and, at risk of her own life, clears a man at risk of his. All she will say is this: "Beat me, burn me, tear me apart if you want. I did not do it. If you won't believe my words, a day will come when this charge is properly investigated. I have a Judge of my own." At last, worn out, the torturer sighed in response to her groans. He couldn't find a spot on her body for a new wound. His own cruelty defeated him; he shuddered at the sight of the flesh he had torn. Then the governor exploded: "Why are you surprised, people? A woman prefers torture to death? It takes two to commit adultery, and I find it far more believable that a guilty woman would deny a sin than that an innocent young man would confess one." Both received the same sentence, and the condemned pair were dragged to execution. The entire population poured out to watch. The gates were so jammed with the surging crowd you'd have thought the city itself was emigrating. At the first stroke of the sword, the young man's head was lopped off and his headless body tumbled into its own blood. Then came the woman's turn. She knelt. The shining blade was raised above her trembling neck. But the moment it touched her flesh, the fatal sword stopped short. It glanced lightly across the skin, barely drawing blood. The executioner stared at his own unnerved hand, astonished at his defeated skill and his drooping blade. He heaved it up for another stroke. Again it fell harmlessly on her neck, as though the steel itself were afraid to touch her. The officer, enraged and panting, threw open his cloak to put his full force behind the next blow. The brooch clasping his mantle clattered to the ground. Without noticing, he began raising his sword again. "Look," said the woman, "a jewel has fallen from your shoulder. Pick up what you've earned with such hard work -- you wouldn't want to lose it." What is the source of confidence like this? Death is bearing down on her, but she feels no terror. When struck, she exults; the executioner turns pale. Her eyes spot the brooch but fail to notice the sword. And as if fearlessness in the face of death weren't enough, she does her would-be killer a favor. Then the mysterious power of the Trinity made even a third blow useless. The terrified soldier, no longer trusting his blade to cut, tried pressing the point against her throat, thinking that even if it wouldn't slice, the force of his hand might drive it into her flesh. And here is a marvel unheard of in any age: the sword bent back to the hilt and, in its defeat, seemed to look to its master as if confessing its inability to kill. Let me call on the example of the three young men in the fiery furnace, who amid the cool encircling flames sang hymns instead of weeping, the fire playing harmlessly around their heads. Let me recall the blessed Daniel, before whom the lions crouched with fawning tails and frightened mouths, though he was their natural prey. Let Susannah rise too in all the nobility of her faith -- condemned by an unjust verdict, saved by a youth inspired by the Holy Spirit. In both cases God's mercy was the same: Susannah was acquitted by the judge and so did not die by the sword; this woman, though condemned by the judge, was acquitted by the sword itself. Now at last the crowd surged forward to defend the woman. Men and women of every age drove the executioner back, shouting in a heaving mob. No one could trust their own eyes. The alarming news reached the nearby city, and the entire force of constables was mustered. The officer responsible for executions burst from among his men, tearing at his hair and crying: "What -- citizens, are you trying to kill me? Do you mean to substitute me for her? However much you want mercy, however much you wish to save a condemned woman, surely I -- an innocent man -- shouldn't have to die!" His tearful plea hit the crowd hard. They were all stunned by grief, and an extraordinary reversal of feeling took hold. A moment ago it had seemed their duty to plead for the woman's life; now it seemed their duty to let the execution proceed. So a new sword was fetched, a new headsman appointed. The victim took her place again, strengthened only by the grace of Christ. The first blow made her quiver; beneath the second she swayed; at the third she fell wounded to the ground. Oh, the majesty of divine power! She who had previously taken four strokes without injury now, a few moments later, appeared to die -- so that an innocent man would not perish in her place. The clergy whose duty it was to wrap the bloodied body in a winding-sheet dug out the earth and heaped together stones for the customary tomb. Sunset came quickly, and by God's mercy the night fell sooner than usual. Suddenly the woman's chest heaved. Her eyes sought the light. Her body quickened into new life. A moment later she sighed, looked around, sat up, and spoke. At last she was able to cry: "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?" Meanwhile, an old woman supported by the church's charity gave up her spirit to the heaven from which it came. It was as though the whole course of events had been arranged on purpose, for her body took the woman's place beneath the grave-mound. At gray dawn, the devil appeared in the form of a constable, demanding the corpse and insisting the grave be pointed out to him. Surprised that she could have died, he suspected she was still alive. The clergy showed him the fresh turf and pointed to the newly heaped earth, taunting him: "By all means, dig up the buried bones! Declare war on the tomb! And if even that doesn't satisfy you, tear her limb from limb for the birds and beasts. A mere death is too good for someone who took seven strokes to kill." Faced with such mockery, the executioner slunk away in confusion, and the woman was secretly nursed back to health at home. They cut her hair short and sent her off with a group of nuns to a secluded country estate, where she changed into men's clothing and let her wounds scar over. Yet even after all these great miracles, the law still raged against her. So true is it that where there is the most law, there too is the most injustice. But now see where the progress of my story has brought me -- to the name of our friend Evagrius. His efforts on behalf of Christ have been so extraordinary that if I imagined I could adequately describe them I'd only prove my own foolishness, and if I deliberately tried to pass them over, I still couldn't stop my voice from bursting out in admiration. Who can properly praise the alertness with which he buried -- so to speak -- Auxentius of Milan, that curse hanging over the church, even before the man was dead? Who can sufficiently celebrate the skill with which he rescued the bishop of Rome from the net in which he was well and truly tangled, showing him how to defeat his enemies and spare them in their defeat? But such topics I must leave to others, shut out as I am by the narrow limits of time and space. Let me simply record the conclusion. Evagrius secured a personal audience with the emperor, pressed his case with relentless entreaties, won imperial favor through his services, and finally carried his cause by sheer persistence. The emperor restored to liberty the woman whom God had restored to life.

To Innocent Not only the first of the letters but probably the earliest extant composition of Jerome (c. 370 A.D.). Innocent, to whom it is addressed, was one of the little band of enthusiasts whom Jerome gathered round him in Aquileia. He followed his friend to Syria, where he died in 374 A.D. (See Letter III., 3.) 1. You have frequently asked me, dearest Innocent, not to pass over in silence the marvellous event which has happened in our own day. I have declined the task from modesty and, as I now feel, with justice, believing myself to be incapable of it, at once because human language is inadequate to the divine praise, and because inactivity, acting like rust upon the intellect, has dried up any little power of expression that I have ever had. You in reply urge that in the things of God we must look not at the work which we are able to accomplish, but at the spirit in which it is undertaken, and that he can never be at a loss for words who has believed on the Word. 2. What, then, must I do? The task is beyond me, and yet I dare not decline it. I am a mere unskilled passenger, and I find myself placed in charge of a freighted ship. I have not so much as handled a rowboat on a lake, and now I have to trust myself to the noise and turmoil of the Euxine. I see the shores sinking beneath the horizon, sky and sea on every side; darkness lowers over the water, the clouds are black as night, the waves only are white with foam. You urge me to hoist the swelling sails, to loosen the sheets, and to take the helm. At last I obey your commands, and as charity can do all things, I will trust in the Holy Ghost to guide my course, and I shall console myself, whatever the event. For, if our ship is wafted by the surf into the wished-for haven, I shall be content to be told that the pilotage was poor. But, if through my unpolished diction we run aground amid the rough cross-currents of language, you may blame my lack of power, but you will at least recognize my good intentions. 3. To begin, then: Vercellæ is a Ligurian town, situated not far from the base of the Alps, once important, but now sparsely peopled and fallen into decay. When the consular was holding his visitation there, a poor woman and her paramour were brought before him — the charge of adultery had been fastened upon them by the husband — and were both consigned to the penal horrors of a prison. Shortly after an attempt was made to elicit the truth by torture, and when the blood-stained hook smote the young man's livid flesh and tore furrows in his side, the unhappy wretch sought to avoid prolonged pain by a speedy death. Falsely accusing his own passions, he involved another in the charge; and it appeared that he was of all men the most miserable, and that his execution was just inasmuch as he had left to an innocent woman no means of self-defense. But the woman, stronger in virtue if weaker in sex, though her frame was stretched upon the rack, and though her hands, stained with the filth of the prison, were tied behind her, looked up to heaven with her eyes, which alone the torturer had been unable to bind, and while the tears rolled down her face, said: You are witness, Lord Jesus, to whom nothing is hid, who triest the reins and the heart. You are witness that it is not to save my life that I deny this charge. I refuse to lie because to lie is sin. And as for you, unhappy man, if you are bent on hastening your death, why must you destroy not one innocent person, but two? I also, myself, desire to die. I desire to put off this hated body, but not as an adulteress. I offer my neck; I welcome the shining sword without fear; yet I will take my innocence with me. He does not die who is slain while purposing so to live. 4. The consular, who had been feasting his eyes upon the bloody spectacle, now, like a wild beast, which after once tasting blood always thirsts for it, ordered the torture to be doubled, and cruelly gnashing his teeth, threatened the executioner with like punishment if he failed to extort from the weaker sex a confession which a man's strength had not been able to keep back. 5. Send help, Lord Jesus. For this one creature of Yours every species of torture is devised. She is bound by the hair to a stake, her whole body is fixed more firmly than ever on the rack; fire is brought and applied to her feet; her sides quiver beneath the executioner's probe; even her breasts do not escape. Still the woman remains unshaken; and, triumphing in spirit over the pain of the body, enjoys the happiness of a good conscience, round which the tortures rage in vain. The cruel judge rises, overcome with passion. She still prays to God. Her limbs are wrenched from their sockets; she only turns her eyes to heaven. Another confesses what is thought their common guilt. She, for the confessor's sake, denies the confession, and, in peril of her own life, clears one who is in peril of his. 6. Meantime she has but one thing to say: Beat me, burn me, tear me, if you will; I have not done it. If you will not believe my words, a day will come when this charge shall be carefully sifted. I have One who will judge me. Wearied out at last, the torturer sighed in response to her groans; nor could he find a spot on which to inflict a fresh wound. His cruelty overcome, he shuddered to see the body he had torn. Immediately the consular cried, in a fit of passion, Why does it surprise you, bystanders, that a woman prefers torture to death? It takes two people, most assuredly, to commit adultery; and I think it more credible that a guilty woman should deny a sin than that an innocent young man should confess one. 7. Like sentence, accordingly, was passed on both, and the condemned pair were dragged to execution. The entire people poured out to see the sight; indeed, so closely were the gates thronged by the out-rushing crowd, that you might have fancied the city itself to be migrating. At the very first stroke of the sword the head of the hapless youth was cut off, and the headless trunk rolled over in its blood. Then came the woman's turn. She knelt down upon the ground, and the shining sword was lifted over her quivering neck. But though the headsman summoned all his strength into his bared arm, the moment it touched her flesh the fatal blade stopped short, and, lightly glancing over the skin, merely grazed it sufficiently to draw blood. The striker saw, with terror, his hand unnerved, and, amazed at his defeated skill and at his drooping sword, he whirled it aloft for another stroke. Again the blade fell forceless on the woman, sinking harmlessly on her neck, as though the steel feared to touch her. The enraged and panting officer, who had thrown open his cloak at the neck to give his full strength to the blow, shook to the ground the brooch which clasped the edges of his mantle, and not noticing this, began to poise his sword for a fresh stroke. See, cried the woman, a jewel has fallen from your shoulder. Pick up what you have earned by hard toil, that you may not lose it. 8. What, I ask, is the secret of such confidence as this? Death draws near, but it has no terrors for her. When smitten she exults, and the executioner turns pale. Her eyes see the brooch, they fail to see the sword. And, as if intrepidity in the presence of death were not enough, she confers a favor upon her cruel foe. And now the mysterious Power of the Trinity rendered even a third blow vain. The terrified soldier, no longer trusting the blade, proceeded to apply the point to her throat, in the idea that though it might not cut, the pressure of his hand might plunge it into her flesh. Marvel unheard of through all the ages! The sword bent back to the hilt, and in its defeat looked to its master, as if confessing its inability to slay. 9. Let me call to my aid the example of the three children, who, amid the cool, encircling fire, sang hymns, instead of weeping, and around whose turbans and holy hair the flames played harmlessly. Let me recall, too, the story of the blessed Daniel, Daniel vi in whose presence, though he was their natural prey, the lions crouched, with fawning tails and frightened mouths. Let Susannah also rise in the nobility of her faith before the thoughts of all; who, after she had been condemned by an unjust sentence, was saved through a youth inspired by the Holy Ghost. In both cases the Lord's mercy was alike shown; for while Susannah was set free by the judge, so as not to die by the sword, this woman, though condemned by the judge, was acquitted by the sword. 10. Now at length the populace rise in arms to defend the woman. Men and women of every age join in driving away the executioner, shouting round him in a surging crowd. Hardly a man dares trust his own eyes. The disquieting news reaches the city close at hand, and the entire force of constables is mustered. The officer who is responsible for the execution of criminals bursts from among his men, and Staining his hoary hair with soiling dust, exclaims: What! citizens, do you mean to seek my life? Do you intend to make me a substitute for her? However much your minds are set on mercy, and however much you wish to save a condemned woman, yet assuredly I— I who am innocent — ought not to perish. His tearful appeal tells upon the crowd, they are all benumbed by the influence of sorrow, and an extraordinary change of feeling is manifested. Before it had seemed a duty to plead for the woman's life, now it seemed a duty to allow her to be executed. 11. Accordingly a new sword is fetched, a new headsman appointed. The victim takes her place, once more strengthened only with the favor of Christ. The first blow makes her quiver, beneath the second she sways to and fro, by the third she falls wounded to the ground. Oh, majesty of the divine power highly to be extolled! She who previously had received four strokes without injury, now, a few moments later, seems to die that an innocent man may not perish in her stead. 12. Those of the clergy whose duty it is to wrap the blood-stained corpse in a winding-sheet, dig out the earth and, heaping together stones, form the customary tomb. The sunset comes on quickly, and by God's mercy the night of nature arrives more swiftly than is its wont. Suddenly the woman's bosom heaves, her eyes seek the light, her body is quickened into new life. A moment after she sighs, she looks round, she gets up and speaks. At last she is able to cry: The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do unto me? 13. Meantime an aged woman, supported out of the funds of the church, gave back her spirit to heaven from which it came. Ecclesiastes 12:7 It seemed as if the course of events had been thus purposely ordered, for her body took the place of the other beneath the mound. In the gray dawn the devil comes on the scene in the form of a constable, asks for the corpse of her who had been slain, and desires to have her grave pointed out to him. Surprised that she could have died, he fancies her to be still alive. The clergy show him the fresh turf, and meet his demands by pointing to the earth lately heaped up, taunting him with such words as these: Yes, of course, tear up the bones which have been buried! Declare war anew against the tomb, and if even that does not satisfy you, pluck her limb from limb for birds and beasts to mangle! Mere dying is too good for one whom it took seven strokes to kill. 14. Before such opprobrious words the executioner retires in confusion, while the woman is secretly revived at home. Then, lest the frequency of the doctor's visits to the church might give occasion for suspicion, they cut her hair short and send her in the company of some virgins to a sequestered country house. There she changes her dress for that of a man, and scars form over her wounds. Yet even after the great miracles worked on her behalf, the laws still rage against her. So true is it that, where there is most law, there, there is also most injustice. 15. But now see whither the progress of my story has brought me; we come upon the name of our friend Evagrius. So great have his exertions been in the cause of Christ that, were I to suppose it possible adequately to describe them, I should only show my own folly; and were I minded deliberately to pass them by, I still could not prevent my voice from breaking out into cries of joy. Who can fittingly praise the vigilance which enabled him to bury, if I may so say, before his death Auxentius of Milan, that curse brooding over the church? Or who can sufficiently extol the discretion with which he rescued the Roman bishop from the toils of the net in which he was fairly entangled, and showed him the means at once of overcoming his opponents and of sparing them in their discomfiture? But Such topics I must leave to other bards, Shut out by envious straits of time and space. I am satisfied now to record the conclusion of my tale. Evagrius seeks a special audience of the Emperor; importunes him with his entreaties, wins his favor by his services, and finally gains his cause through his earnestness. The Emperor restored to liberty the woman whom God had restored to life. About this page Source. Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001001.htm>. Contact information. 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