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, reputation for your
neighbour." Methinks the spite of such men as these my enemies
would have accused the very Christ Himself, or those belonging to
Him, prophets and apostles, or the other holy fathers, if such
spite had existed in their time, seeing that they associated in
such familiar intercourse with women, and this though they were
whole of body. On this point St. Augustine, in his book on the duty
of monks, proves that women followed our Lord Jesus Christ and the
apostles as inseparable companions, even accompanying them when
they preached (Chap. 4). "Faithful women," he says, "who were
possessed of worldly wealth went with them, and ministered to them
out of their wealth, so that they might lack none of those things
which belong to the substance of life." And if any one does not
believe that the apostles thus permitted saintly women to go about
with them wheresoever they preached the Gospel, let him listen to
the Gospel itself, and learn therefrom that in so doing they
followed the example of the Lord. For in the Gospel it is written
thus: "And it came to pass afterward, that He went throughout every
city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the
kingdom of God: and the twelve were with Him, and certain women,
which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called