ho and
what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him: for she is a
sinner" (Luke vii, 39), might much more reasonably have suspected
baseness of the Lord, considering the matter from a purely human
standpoint, than my enemies could suspect it of me. One who had
seen the mother of Our Lord entrusted to the care of the young man
(John xix, 27), or who had beheld the prophets dwelling and
sojourning with widows (I Kings xvii, 10), would likewise have had
a far more logical ground for suspicion. And what would my
calumniators have said if they had but seen Malchus, that captive
monk of whom St. Jerome writes, living in the same but with his
wife? Doubtless they would have regarded it as criminal in the
famous scholar to have highly commended what he thus saw, saying
thereof: "There was a certain old man named Malchus, a native of
this region, and his wife with him in his hut. Both of them were
earnestly religious, and they so often passed the threshold of the
church that you might have thought them the Zacharias and Elisabeth
of the Gospel, saving only that John was not with them."

Why, finally, do such men refrain from slandering the holy fathers,
of whom we frequently read, nay, and have even seen with our own
eyes, founding convents for women and making provision for their
maintenance, thereby following the example of the seven deacons
whom the apostles sent before them to secure food and take care of
the women? (Acts vi, 5). For the weaker sex needs the help of the
stronger one to such an extent that the apostle proclaimed that the
head of the woman is ever the man (I Cor. xi, 3), and in sign
thereof he bade her ever wear her head covered (ib. 5). For this
reason I marvel greatly at the customs which have crept into
monasteries, whereby, even as abbots are placed in charge of the
men, abbesses now are given authority over the women, and the women
bind themselves in their vows to accept the same rules as the men.
Yet in these rules there are many things which cannot possibly be
carried out by women, either as superiors or in the lower orders.
In many places we may even behold an inversion of the natural order
of things, whereby the abbesses and nuns have authority over the
clergy, and even over those who are themselves in charge of the
people. The more power such women exercise over men, the more
easily can they lead them into iniquitous desires, and in this way
can lay a very heavy yoke upon their shoulders. It was