Years had passed since Jerome received the letter about Fabiola. She had responded beautifully to his first letter, repenting thoroughly from her sin, breaking off her adulterous marriage, and living in celibacy from that day forward. Her life had become a life of beautiful devotion to God, a life of prayer, fasting, and service to the poor.
Then Jerome received the news that Fabiola had died. Her earthly life had been brought to an end and she had passed triumphantly into the presence of the Lord. Jerome was asked to write a eulogy for her, and he gladly accepted.
In this eulogy (the full text of which is found in Appendix 2) Jerome mentions that the faults of Fabiola’s first husband were “so terrible . . . that not even a prostitute or a common slave could have put up with them.” He then tells about how Fabiola had mistakenly thought herself free to marry after her divorce from her first husband. Then how, upon realizing her error, she had repented from her sin and sought earnestly the forgiveness of God through Jesus Christ.
He goes on to speak of the beautiful life she had lived after her repentance. He states:
“To-day you give me as my theme Fabiola, the praise of the Christians, the marvel of the gentiles, the sorrow of the poor, and the consolation of the monks. Whatever point in her character I choose to treat of first, pales into insignificance compared with those which follow after. Shall I praise her fasts? Her alms are greater still. Shall I commend her lowliness? The glow of her faith is yet brighter. Shall I mention her studied plainness in dress, her voluntary choice of plebeian costume and the garb of a slave that she might put to shame silken robes? To change one’s disposition is a greater achievement than to change one’s dress.”
Here is part of what Jerome wrote regarding her divorce, remarriage, and repentance.
And because at the very outset there is a rock in the path and she is overwhelmed by a storm of censure, for having forsaken her first husband and having taken a second, I will not praise her for her conversion till I have first cleared her of this charge.
So terrible then were the faults imputed to her former husband that not even a prostitute or a common slave could have put up with them. If I were to recount them, I should undo the heroism of the wife who chose to bear the blame of a separation rather than to blacken the character and expose the stains of him who was one body with her. I will only urge this one plea which is sufficient to exonerate a chaste matron and a Christian woman. The Lord has given commandment that a wife must not be put away “except it be for fornication, and that, if put away, she must remain unmarried.” (Matthew 19:9; 1 Corinthians 7:11)
Now a commandment which is given to men logically applies to women also. For it cannot be that, while an adulterous wife is to be put away, an incontinent husband is to be retained. The apostle says: “he which is joined to an harlot is one body.” (1 Corinthians 6:16) Therefore she also who is joined to a whoremonger and unchaste person is made one body with him. . . .
Fabiola therefore was fully persuaded in her own mind: she thought she had acted legitimately in putting away her husband, and that when she had done so she was free to marry again. She did not know that the rigour of the gospel takes away from women all pretexts for re-marriage so long as their former husbands are alive; and not knowing this, though she contrived to evade other assaults of the devil, she at this point unwittingly exposed herself to a wound from him.
But why do I linger over old and forgotten matters, seeking to excuse a fault for which Fabiola has herself confessed her penitence? Who would believe that, after the death of her second husband at a time when most widows, having shaken off the yoke of servitude, grow careless and allow themselves more liberty than ever, frequenting the baths, flitting through the streets, shewing their harlot faces everywhere; that at this time Fabiola came to herself? Yet it was then that she put on sackcloth to make public confession of her error.
Be the first to react on this!
