Secondly, the fine quality of mercy that distinguishes woman’s character deserves recognition.  Even though she retired to a convent, she could not become so forgetful of her fellow creatures as her male companions.  From the very beginning we observe that she was more unselfish in her asceticism than they.  It is true the monk forsook all, and to that extent was self-sacrificing, but in his desire for his own salvation, he was prone to neglect every one else.  The monk’s ministrations were too often confined to those who came to him, but the nun went forth to heal the diseased and to bind up the broken-hearted.  As soon as she embraced the monastic life we read of hospitals.  The desire for salvation drove man into the desert; a Christ-like mercy and divine sympathy kept his sister by the couch of pain.

Lastly, a word remains to be said touching the question of marriage.  At first, the nun sometimes entered the marriage state, and, of course, left the convent; but, beginning with Basil, this practice was condemned, and irrevocable vows were exacted.  In 407, Innocent I. closed even the door of penitence and forgiveness to those who broke their vows and married.

Widows and virgins alike assumed the veil.  Marriage itself was not despised, because the monastic life was only for those who sought a higher type of piety than, it was supposed, could be attained amid the ordinary conditions of life.  But marriage, as well as other so-called secular relations, was eschewed by those who wished to make their salvation sure.  Jerome says:  “I praise wedlock, I praise marriage, but it is because they give me virgins; I gather the rose from the thorns, the gold from the earth, the pearl from the shell.”  He therefore tolerated marriage among people contented with ordinary religious attainments, but he thought it incompatible with true holiness.  Augustine admitted that the mother and her daughter may be both in heaven, but one a bright and the other a dim star.  Some writers, as Helvidius, opposed this view and maintained that there was no special virtue in an unmarried life; that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was also the mother of other children, and as such was an example of Christian virtue.  Jerome brought out his guns and poured hot shot into the enemies’ camp.  In the course of his answer, which contained many intolerant and acrimonious statements, he drew a comparison between the married and the unmarried state.  It is interesting because it reflects the opinions of those who disparaged marriage, and reveals the character of the principles which the early Fathers advocated.  It is very evident from this letter against Helvidius that Jerome regarded all secular duties as interfering with the pursuit of the highest virtue.