s it
possible for such suspicion to continue in my case, seeing that
divine mercy has freed me therefrom by depriving me of all power to
enact such baseness? How shameless is this latest accusation! In
truth that which had happened to me so completely removes all
suspicion of this iniquity among all men that those who wish to
have their women kept under close guard employ eunuchs for that
purpose, even as sacred history tells regarding Esther and the
other damsels of King Ahasuerus (Esther ii, 5). We read, too, of
that eunuch of great authority under Queen Candace who had charge
of all her treasure, him to whose conversion and baptism the
apostle Philip was directed by an angel (Acts viii, 27). Such men,
in truth, are enabled to have far more importance and intimacy
among modest and upright women by the fact that they are free from
any suspicion of lust.

The sixth book of the Ecclesiastical History tells us that the
greatest of all Christian philosophers, Origen, inflicted a like
injury on himself with his own hand, in order that all suspicion of
this nature might be completely done away with in his instruction
of women in sacred doctrine. In this respect, I thought, God's
mercy had been kinder to me than to him, for it was judged that he
had acted most rashly and had exposed himself to no slight censure,
whereas the thing had been done to me through the crime of another,
thus preparing me for a task similar to his own. Moreover, it had
been accomplished with much less pain, being so quick and sudden,
for I was heavy with sleep when they laid hands on me, and felt
scarcely any pain at all.

But alas, I thought, the less I then suffered from the wound, the
greater is my punishment now through slander, and I am tormented
far more by the loss of my reputation than I was by that of part of
my body. For thus is it written: "A good name is rather to be
chosen than great riches" (Prov. xxii, 1). And as St. Augustine
tells us in a sermon of his on the life and conduct of the clergy,
"He is cruel who, trusting in his conscience, neglects his
reputation." Again he says: "Let us provide those things that are
good, as the apostle bids us (Rom. xii, 17), not alone in the eyes
of God, but likewise in the eyes of men. Within himself each one's
conscience suffices, but for our own sakes our reputations ought
not to be tarnished, but to flourish. Conscience and reputation are
different matters: conscience is for yourself, reputatio