CHAPTER XXVI. On the companionship of women
No woman ever lived or stayed in Augustine's house, not even his own sister, though she was a widow who had long served God and lived in charge of His handmaidens even to |105 the day of her death. Nor did he admit his brother's daughters who were likewise serving God, although the councils of holy bishops placed these persons among the exceptions. He used to say that although no evil suspicion could arise from the fact that his sister and nieces were living with him, yet since they could not be without servants and other women who would stay with them, and still others would come in from without to visit them, because of these a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall might be placed in the way of the weak. He also said that because of the presence of all those women who would live or come there, the men who happened to be visiting the bishop or some one of the clergy might either perish by human temptation or surely be most shamefully maligned by the evil suspicions of men. On this account, therefore, he said that women ought never to live in the same house with the servants of God, even the most chaste, that no occasion to fall, as has been said, nor a stumbling-block might be placed in the way of the weak by such an example. And if perchance any women requested to see him or to salute him, they never came in to him without some of the clergy as witnesses, nor did he ever speak with them alone, not even if the matter was one of secrecy.