CHAPTER LXIX

THE NUN WHO FELL

[1] A CERTAIN virgin ascetic living with two others practised asceticism for nine or ten years. Seduced by a minstrel she fell and conceived and bore a child. Having come to hate her seducer intensely she was conscience-smitten to the depths of her soul, and reached such a degree of repentance that she completely lost heart and tried to starve herself to death. [2] And in her prayers she besought God, saying: “O great God, Who hearest the evils of every creature, and desirest neither the death nor destruction of those who stumble, if Thou wishest me to be saved, show me in this Thy marvels, and take away the fruit of my sin which I have borne, lest I employ a noose or fling myself over a precipice.” Praying in these terms she was heard, for her child died not long after. [3] So from that day she never again met the man who had led her captive, but giving herself to the severest fasting for thirty years she served the sick and maimed. She importuned God so, that it was revealed to one of the holy priests: “So-and-so has pleased me more in her penitence than in her virginity.” I write this lest we should despise those who genuinely repent.