Christians could speak ill of a state which consists in the most perfect
means of attaining to true virtue, and says they hurt themselves, not
the monks, whose merit they increase; as Nero's persecution of St. Paul,
because he had converted one of the tyrant's concubines, enhanced the
apostle's glory. A more dreadful judgment is reserved to these enemies
of the love of Christ. They said, they drew no one from his faith. The
saint retorts: What will faith avail without innocence and virtue? They
alleged that a Christian may be saved without retiring into the desert.
He answers: Would to God men lived so in the world that monasteries were
of no advantage! but seeing all disorders prevail in it, who can blame
those who seek to shelter themselves from the storm? He elegantly shows
that the number of those that are saved in the world is exceeding small,
and that the gate of life is narrow. The multitude perished in Noah's
flood, and only eight escaped in the ark. How foolish would it have been
to rely carelessly on safety in such danger! Yet here the case is far
more dreadful, everlasting fire being the portion of those that are
lost. Yet in the world how few resist the torrent, and are not carried
down with the crowd, sliding into anger, detraction, rash judgment,
covetousness, or some other sin. Almost all, as if it were by common
conspiracy, throw themselves into the gulf, where the multitude of
companions will be no comfort. Is it not, then, a part of wisdom to fly
from these dangers, in order to secure our only affair in the best
manner possible?

Whereas parents sometimes opposed the vocation of their children to a
monastic state, in his second book he addresses himself to a Pagan
father, who grieved to see his son and heir engaged in that profession.
He tells him he has the greatest reason to rejoice; proving from
Socrates, and other heathen philosophers, that his son is more happy in
voluntary poverty and contempt of the world, than he could have been in
the possession of empires: that he is richer than his father, whom the
loss of one bag of his treasures would afflict, whereas the monk, who
possessed only a single cloak, could see without concern even that
stolen, and would even rejoice though condemned to banishment or death.
He is greater than emperors, more happy than the world, out of the reach
of its malice or evil, whom no one could hurt if he desired it. A father
who loves his son ought more to rejoice at h