Of Abbots and Actresses

by Thomas Howard - November 13, 2007

Reprinted with permission.

It is recorded of the Abbot Pambo, of whom I know nothing at all except the following anecdote, that, upon a visit to St. Athanasius, he came upon an actress – not, I would suppose, inside the good saint's cell. (I have only very dim notions as to what sort of women these Egyptian actresses were.)

In any event, Pambo broke down and wept. They asked him why. He said that two things had upset him: first, her perdition; and second, the fact that he himself didn't have nearly as much zeal to please God as she had to please vile men. I think we all find ourselves stricken with his second point. It is his first point upon which I briefly ran aground.

Perdition? This actress? Did he mean she was going to hell? How did he know? Well, I doubt that he would have passed a final judgment on her eternal destiny; but on the other hand, these grizzled fathers lived in frightening proximity to the divine holiness itself, and he recognized the precincts in which the poor woman had her being. He wasn't regaled by the fantasies in which these women live – then and now, one supposes.

He was looking at things from an odd angle. Was it his fancy? Was he morbid? How goes it with the souls of actresses anyway? Is all well? Who is to say? It's always a sticky wicket, this business of talking about the welfare of others' souls. I myself belonged to a profession during my own working life that shared none of the glitter but most certainly all of the fantasy of the theatrical world, namely the academic. There is no employment in the world which offers more chances for vaingloriousness than scholarship, and collegiate hallways heave with portly coxcombs as vain as all of Egypt and Hollywood taken together. (I know this because I knew one of them as intimately as I knew any colleague, alas.) Pambo, being a very holy man, was no doubt on a far surer footing than the rest of us from which to discern matters of perdition.

But he scarcely gloated over other souls' danger; it brought him up short. Oh, she was eager to please men, to be sure, but an actress can see such an audience, and hear the applause and the shouts. That's entirely understandable. Who can resist such pleasures? How sore a blame is to be attached to this level of venality? And what if she allows herself a bit of lewd leeway now and again? Have not women been doing this from the beginning? Is this not only human? Shall any given woman be damned for merely catering to well-paying, loud, and lusty men? Or, at least, so goes "moral theology" as it is often loosely and happily aired over convivial drinks… Not really the drift of Pambo's own self-scrutiny, however.

He, rather, is jolted awake, thinking: If this woman is in danger, poor soul, where does this put me? She does what she does to make a living, no doubt, and perhaps picks up spicier motives that bring along more somber peril, alas. Well, she will find herself in God's hands one fine day. It is interesting that he does not for a moment sentimentalize things, as would most certainly be done in our own time – the strumpet with the heart of gold and all that. All will be accounted for – by her as well as by me, much as we quail at the thought. What she will owe is none of Pambo's (or my) business. Pambo turns fiercely to his own case: He has everything. He is the recipient of all the largesse of heaven. But he is doing a poorer job serving his Master than this actress is serving hers. What about that?

What conceivable case can be made out for Pambo? Most of us will not worry for long over him. We may well scrutinize our own case.


Thomas Howard is retired from 40 years of teaching English in private schools, college, and seminary in England and America.