Chapter VIII. How, by the advice of the Monks, he began to preach the word… for chastity remained virgin, and some who had taken the vow of continency gathered together others with them for the service of God.
(3) But since the righteousness of the good suffereth the envy of evil men, some persons of corrupt mind, lovers of the world and followers of luxurious living, often spoke against 19
Gerard, for they hated the way of truth, and were enemies of every good thing.
These persons secretly defamed the man of God, and sometimes by open railing strove to stir up a tumult against him, and that because he argued with severity against their own vices and crimes: but a yet more wicked thing was done, in that certain priests and prelates and wandering friars thought it unworthy to bear with the teaching of so great a man and with his eagerness for justice to be done upon those that deserted the holy law. They strove therefore to blacken his fame, and to fight down his constancy of purpose, of whom he himself writes in one of his letters. "Many snarling folk are come about me, who rage even as the fire among the thorns, but they do not appear openly." Wherefore this lover of Christ, this zealot for souls, was neither shaken by the threats of his enemies, nor vexed by the dispraise of them that upbraided him; for he was founded upon a strong rock because he sought not the glory of the world, nor feared to suffer shame for Christ. He was ready indeed for the truth's sake, and for the Gospel of God, to yield up both body and soul so as to promote, and wheresoever it might be, to extend His glory. And so blessed be God who raised up for us such a preacher and sent him forth to preach; for it was through him that there shone upon us who are in this lower, world, the Light of the Heavenly Life.