Against
Jovinianus.
————————————
Book I.
Jovinianus, concerning whom we know little more than is
to be found in the two following books, had published at Rome a Latin
treatise containing all, or part of the opinions here controverted,
viz. (1) “That a virgin is no better as such than a wife in the
sight of God. (2) Abstinence is no better than a thankful partaking of
food. (3) A person baptized with the Spirit as well as with water
cannot sin. (4) All sins are equal. (5) There is but one grade of
punishment and one of reward in the future state.” In addition to
this he held the birth of our Lord to have been by a “true
parturition,” and was thus at issue with the orthodoxy of the
time, according to which the infant Jesus passed through the walls of
the womb as His Resurrection body afterwards did out of the tomb or
through the closed doors. Pammachius, Jerome’s friend, brought
Jovinian’s book under the notice of Siricius, bishop of Rome, and
it was shortly afterwards condemned in synods at that city and at Milan
(about a.d. 390). He subsequently sent
Jovinian’s books to Jerome, who answered them in the present
treatise in the year 393. Nothing more is known of Jovinian, but it has
been conjectured from Jerome’s remark in the treatise against
Vigilantius, where Jovinian is said to have “amidst pheasants and
pork rather belched out than breathed out his life,” and by a
kind of transmigration to have transmitted his opinions into
Vigilantius, that he had died before 409, the date of that work.
The first book is wholly on the first proposition of
Jovinianus, that relating to marriage and virginity. The first three
chapters are introductory. The rest may be divided into three
parts:
1 (ch. 4–13). An exposition, in Jerome’s
sense, of St. Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor. vii.
2 (ch. 14–39). A statement of the teaching which
Jerome derives from the various books of both the Old and the New
Testaments.
3. A denunciation of Jovinianus (c. 40), and the praises
of virginity and of single marriages derived from examples in the
heathen world.
The treatise gives a remarkable specimen of
Jerome’s system of interpreting Scripture, and also of the
methods by which asceticism was introduced into the Church, and
marriage brought into disesteem.
1. Very few days have elapsed since the holy brethren of
Rome sent to me the treatises of a certain Jovinian with the request
that I would reply to the follies contained in them, and would crush
with evangelical and apostolic vigour the4254
| 4254 From this
expression and that quoted in the notice above, it would be supposed
that Jerome knew Jovinianus and his mode of life. But there is no
reason to think that he had this knowledge; and his imputations against
his adversary must be taken as the inferences which he draws from his
opinions. |
Epicurus of Christianity. I read but
could not in the least comprehend them. I began therefore to give them
closer attention, and to thoroughly sift not only words and sentences,
but almost every single syllable; for I wished first to ascertain his
meaning, and then to approve, or refute what he had said. But the style
is so barbarous, and the
language so
vile and such a heap of blunders,
that I could neither understand what he was talking about, nor by what
arguments he was trying to
prove his points. At one moment he is all
bombast, at another he grovels: from time to time he lifts himself up,
and then like a
wounded snake finds his own effort too much for him.
Not satisfied with the
language of men, he attempts something
loftier.
4255
“The
mountains labour; a
poor mouse is
born.”
4256
| 4256 Pers. Sat. iii.
118. |
“That
he’s gone
mad ev’n
mad Orestes swears.”
Moreover he involves everything in such inextricable
confusion that the saying of4257
Plautus might
be applied to him:—“This is what none but a Sibyl will ever
read.”
To understand him we must be prophets. We read
Apollo’s4258
| 4258 The allusion is
probably to the Sybilline books. |
raving
prophetesses. We remember, too, what
4259
Virgil says of senseless
noise.
4260
Heraclitus,
also, surnamed the Obscure, the
philosophers find hard to understand
even with their utmost toil. But what are they compared with our
riddle-
maker, whose books are much more difficult to comprehend than to
refute? Although (we must confess) the task of refuting them is no easy
one. For how can you overcome a man when you are quite in the
dark as
to his meaning? But, not to be tedious to my reader, the introduction
to his second book, of which he has discharged himself like a sot after
a
night’s debauch, will show the character of his eloquence, and
through what bright
flowers of rhetoric he takes his stately
course.
2. “I respond to your invitation, not that I may
go through life with a high reputation, but may live free from idle
rumour. I beseech the ground, the young shoots of our plantations, the
plants and trees of tenderness snatched from the whirlpool of vice, to
grant me audience and the support of many listeners. We know that the
Church through hope, faith, charity, is inaccessible and impregnable.
In it no one is immature: all are apt to learn: none can force a way
into it by violence, or deceive it by craft.”
3. What, I ask, is the meaning of these portentous words
and of this grotesque description? Would you not think he was in a
feverish dream, or that he was seized with madness and ought to be put
into the strait jacket which Hippocrates prescribed? However often I
read him, even till my heart sinks within me, I am still in uncertainty
of his meaning.4261
| 4261 Ibi est
distinctio. Instead of clearness we have to make a choice between
possible meanings. |
Everything
starts from, everything depends upon, something else. It is
impossible
to make out any connection; and, excepting the
proofs from Scripture
which he has not
dared to exchange for his own
lovely flowers of
rhetoric, his words suit all matter equally well, because they suit no
matter at all. This circumstance led me shrewdly to suspect that his
object in proclaiming the excellence of
marriage was only to disparage
virginity. For when the less is put upon a level with the greater, the
lower
profits by comparison, but the higher
suffers wrong. For
ourselves, we do not follow the views of
4262
| 4262 Marcion lived
about a.d. 150, and was co-temporary with
Polycarp, who is said to have had a personal encounter with him at
Rome. Unlike other Gnostics he professed to be purely Christian in his
doctrines. He is specially noted for his violent treatment of
Scripture: he rejected the whole of the Old Testament, while of the New
he acknowledged only the Gospel of S. Luke and ten of S. Paul’s
Epistles, and from these he expunged whatever he did not approve of.
His sect lasted until the sixth century. |
Marcion and Manichæus, and
disparage
marriage; nor,
deceived by the error of
4263
| 4263 By birth an
Assyrian, and a pupil of Justin Martyr. His followers were called
Encratites, or Temperates, from their great austerity.
They also bore the names Water-drinkers and
Renouncers. |
Tatian, the
leader of the Encratites,
do we think all intercourse impure; he condemns and
rejects not only
marriage but also
food which
God created for the use of man. We know
that in a great
house, there are not only
vessels of
gold and
silver,
but also of
wood and earthenware. And that upon the
foundation,
Christ,
which
Paul the master-builder laid, some build
gold,
silver, precious
stones: others, on the contrary, hay,
wood, straw. We are not ignorant
of the words,
4264
| 4264 Heb. xiii. The Revised Ver. translates “let
marriage be, etc.” There is no verb in the original, the sentence
being probably designed to be a Christian proverb, and capable of
serving either as an assertion or as a precept. The revised
rendering is preferred by the chief modern commentators. |
“
Marriage is honourable among
all, and the
bed undefiled.” We have read
God’s first
command,
4265
“Be
fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the
earth”; but while we honour
marriage we prefer
virginity which is the
offspring of
marriage. Will
silver cease to be
silver, if
gold is more precious than
silver? Or is despite done to
tree and corn, if we prefer the fruit to root and foliage, or the
grain
to stalk and
ear?
Virginity is to
marriage what fruit is to the
tree,
or
grain to the straw. Although the
hundred-fold, the sixty-fold, and
the thirty-fold spring from one
earth and from one sowing, yet there is
a great difference in respect of number. The thirty-fold has reference
to
marriage. The very way the
4266
| 4266 For much
interesting information relating to counting on the fingers, and for
authorities on the subject, see Mayor’s note on Juvenal x.
249. |
fingers are
combined—see how they seem to embrace, tenderly
kiss, and pledge
their troth either to other—is a picture of
husband and
wife. The
sixty-fold applies to
widows, because they are placed in a position of
difficulty and
distress. Hence the upper
finger signifies their
depression, and the greater the difficulty in resisting the allurements
of
pleasure once experienced, the greater the
reward. Moreover (give
good heed, my reader), to denote a
hundred, the right
hand is used
instead of the left: a circle is made with the same
fingers which on
the left
hand represented widowhood, and thus the
crown of
virginity is
expressed. In saying this I have followed my own impatient spirit
rather than the course of the argument. For I had scarcely left
harbour, and had barely
hoisted sail, when a swelling tide of words
suddenly swept me into the
depths of the discussion. I must stay my
course, and take in canvas for a little while; nor will I indulge my
sword, anxious as it is to strike a blow for
virginity. The farther
back the catapult is drawn, the greater the force of the missile. To
linger is not to lose, if by lingering
victory is better assured. I
will briefly set forth our
adversary’s views, and will drag them
out from his books like snakes from
the
holes where they
hide, and will separate the
venomous head from the
writhing body. What is baneful shall be
discovered, that, when we have
the
power, it may be
crushed.
He says that “virgins, widows, and married women,
who have been once passed through the laver of Christ, if they are on a
par in other respects, are of equal merit.”
He endeavours to show that “they who with full
assurance of faith have been born again in baptism, cannot be
overthrown by the devil.”
His third point is “that there is no difference
between abstinence from food, and its reception with
thanksgiving.”
The fourth and last is “that there is one reward
in the kingdom of heaven for all who have kept their baptismal
vow.”
4. This is the hissing of the old serpent; by counsel
such as this the dragon drove man from Paradise. For he promised that
if they would prefer fulness to fasting they should be immortal, as
though it were an impossibility for them to fall; and while he promises
they shall be as Gods, he drives them from Paradise, with the result
that they who, while naked and unhampered, and as virgins unspotted
enjoyed the fellowship of the Lord were cast down into the vale of
tears, and sewed skins together to clothe themselves withal. But, not
to detain the reader any longer, I will keep to the division given
above and taking his propositions one by one will rely chiefly on the
evidence of Scripture to refute them, for fear he may chatter and
complain that he was overcome by rhetorical skill rather than by force
of truth. If I succeed in this and with the aid of a cloud of witnesses
from both Testaments prove too strong for him, I will then accept his
challenge, and adduce illustrations from secular literature. I will
show that even among philosophers and distinguished statesmen, the
virtuous are wont to be preferred by all to the voluptuous, that is to
say men like4267
| 4267 The philosopher
of Crotona, in Italy, b.c. 580–510. See
some of his sayings in Jerome’s Apology, iii. 39–40. |
Pythagoras,
4268
| 4268 The great
teacher of the Academy at Athens; lived b.c.
428–389. |
Plato and
4269
| 4269 Surnamed the
“Just.” He was the opponent of Themistocles. He fought at
Marathon (490), and although in exile did good service at Salamis
(480). He was now recalled, and after commanding the Athenians at
Platæa (479) died, probably in 468, so poor that he did not leave
enough to pay for his funeral. |
Aristides, to
4270
| 4270 Flourished about
b.c. 370. A disciple of Socrates, and founder
of the Cyrenaic School of Philosophy; he was luxurious in his life, and
held pleasure to be the highest good. |
Aristippus,
4271
| 4271 Epicurus (b.c. 342–270), though a disciple of
Aristippus, does not appear to have deserved the odium attached to his
name by Jerome and many others. “Pleasure with him was not a mere
momentary and transitory sensation, but something lasting and
imperishable, consisting in pure and noble enjoyments, that is, in
ἀταραξία and ἀπονία, or the freedom from pain
and from all influences which disturb the peace of our mind, and
thereby our happiness which is the result of it.” See
Zeller’s Socrates and the Socratic Schools (Reichel’s
translation), second ed., p. 337 sq. |
Epicurus and
4272
| 4272 The famous
Athenian, talented, reckless and unscrupulous; born about b.c. 450, assassinated 404. |
Alcibiades. I entreat
virgins of both
sexes and all such as are continent, the
married also and the twice
married, to assist my efforts with their prayers. Jovinian is the
common
enemy. For he who maintains all to be of equal merit, does no
less injury to
virginity in comparing it with
marriage than he does to
marriage, when he allows it to be
lawful, but to the same extent as
second and third marriages. But to digamists and trigamists also he
does wrong, for he places on a level with them whoremongers and the
most licentious persons as soon as they have
repented; but perhaps
those who have been
married twice or thrice ought not to complain, for
the same whoremonger if penitent is made equal in the
kingdom of
heaven
even to
virgins. I will therefore explain more clearly and in proper
sequence the arguments he employs and the illustrations he adduces
respecting
marriage, and will treat them in the order in which he
states them. And I beg the reader not to be disturbed if he is
compelled to read Jovinian’s nauseating trash. He will all the
more gladly drink
Christ’s antidote after the
devil’s
poisonous concoction. Listen with
patience, ye
virgins; listen, I
pray
you, to the voice of the most voluptuous of
preachers; nay rather close
your
ears, as you would to the Syren’s fabled
songs, and pass on.
For a little while
endure the wrongs you
suffer: think you are
crucified with
Christ, and are listening to the blasphemies of the
Pharisees.
5. First of all, he says, God declares that4273
“therefore shall a man leave
his
father and his mother, and shall
cleave unto his
wife: and they
shall be one
flesh.” And lest we should say that this is a
quotation from the Old Testament, he asserts that it has been
4274
confirmed by the
Lord in the
Gospel—“What
God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder”: and he immediately adds,
4275
“Be
fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the
earth.” He next repeats the names of
Seth, Enos,
Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared,
Enoch, Methuselah,
Lamech,
Noah, and tells us
that they all had
wives and in accordance with the will of
God begot
sons, as though there could be any
table of descent or any history of
mankind without
wives and
children. “There,” says he,
“is
Enoch, who walked with
God and was carried up to
heaven.
There is
Noah, the only person who, except his
wife, and his sons and
their
wives, was
saved at the deluge, although there must have been
many persons not of marriageable age, and therefore presumably
virgins.
Again, after the deluge, when the human race started as it were anew,
men and
women were paired together and a
fresh blessing was pronounced
on procreation,
4276
“Be
fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the
earth.” Moreover, free permission was given to eat
flesh,
4277
“Every moving thing that
liveth shall be
food for you; as the green
herb have I given you
all.” He then
flies off to
Abraham,
Isaac, and
Jacob, of whom the
first had three
wives, the second one, the third four,
Leah,
Rachel,
Billah, and Zilpah, and he declares that
Abraham by his
faith merited
the
blessing which he received in begetting his son.
Sarah, typifying
the
Church, when it had ceased to be with her after the manner of
women, exchanged the
curse of barrenness for the
blessing of
child-bearing. We are informed that
Rebekah went like a
prophet to
inquire of the
Lord, and was told,
4278
“Two
nations and two peoples are in thy
womb,” that
Jacob
served for his
wife, and that when
Rachel, thinking it was in the
power
of her
husband to give her
children, said,
4279
“Give me
children, or else I
die,” he replied,
4280
“Am I
in
God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the
womb?” so well aware was he that the fruit of
marriage cometh
from the
Lord and not from the
husband. We next
learn that
Joseph, a
holy man of spotless chastity, and all the patriarchs, had
wives, and
that
God blessed them all alike through the
lips of
Moses.
Judah also
and Thamar are brought upon the scene, and he censures Onan, slain by
the
Lord, because he, grudging to raise up
seed to his
brother,
marred
the
marriage rite. He refers to
Moses and the
leprosy of Miriam, who,
because she chided her
brother on account of his
wife, was stricken by
the avenging
hand of
God. He
praises Samson, I may even say
extravagantly panegyrizes the uxorious
Nazarite.
Deborah also and
Barak
are mentioned, because, although they had not the benefit of
virginity,
they were victorious over the
iron chariots of Sisera and
Jabin. He
brings forward Jael, the
wife of
Heber the Kenite, and extols her for
arming herself with the
4281
| 4281 Palo.
Rev. Vers. tent-pin. |
stake. He
says there was no difference between Jephthah and his
virgin daughter,
who was sacrificed to the
Lord: nay, of the two, he prefers the
faith
of the
father to that of the
daughter who met
death with
grief and
tears. He then comes to Samuel, another
Nazarite of the
Lord, who from
infancy was brought up in the
tabernacle and was clad in a linen ephod,
or, as the words are rendered,
in linen vestments: he, too, we
are told, begot sons without a stain upon his priestly
purity. He
places
Boaz and his
wife Ruth side by side in his repository, and
traces the descent of
Jesse and
David from them. He then points out how
David himself, for the
price of two
hundred foreskins and at the
peril
of his
life, was bedded with the king’s
daughter. What shall I
say of
Solomon, whom he includes in the list of
husbands, and
represents as a type of the Saviour, maintaining that of him it was
written,
4282
“Give the king thy
judgments, O
God, and thy
righteousness unto the king’s
son”? And
4283
“To
him shall be given of the
gold of
Sheba, and men shall
pray for him
continually.” Then all at once he makes a jump to
Elijah and
Elisha, and tells us as a great
secret that the spirit of
Elijah rested
on
Elisha. Why he mentioned this he does not say. It can hardly be that
he thinks
Elijah and
Elisha, like the
rest, were
married men. The next
step is to
Hezekiah, upon whose
praises he dwells, and yet (I wonder
why) forgets to mention that he said,
4284
“Henceforth I will
beget
children.” He relates that
Josiah, a
righteous man, in whose time
the book of Deuteronomy was found in the
temple, was
instructed by
Huldah,
wife of Shallum. Daniel also and the three
youths are classed
by him with the
married. Suddenly he betakes himself to the
Gospel, and
adduces
Zachariah and Elizabeth, Peter and his
father-in-
law, and the
rest of the
Apostles. His inference is thus expressed: “If they
idly urge in defence of themselves the plea that the
world in its early
stage needed to be replenished, let them listen to the words of
Paul,
4285
‘I desire therefore that the
younger
widows marry, bear
children.’ And
4286
‘
Marriage is honourable and
the
bed undefiled.’ And
4287
‘A
wife is bound for so long time as her
husband liveth; but if the
husband be dead, she is free to be
married to whom she will; only in
the
Lord.’ And
4288
‘
Adam was not
beguiled, but the
woman being
beguiled hath fallen
into
transgression: but she shall be
saved through the
child-bearing,
if they continue in
faith and
love and
sanctification with
sobriety.’ Surely we shall hear no more of the famous Apostolic
utterance,
4289
‘And they who have
wives
as though they had them not.’ It can hardly be that you will say
the reason why he wished them to be
married was that some
widows had
already turned back after
Satan: as though
virgins never fell and their
fall was not more ruinous. All this makes it clear that in forbidding
to marry, and to eat
food which
God created for use, you have
consciences seared as with a
hot iron, and are followers of the
Manichæans.” Then comes much more which it would be
unprofitable to discuss. At last he
dashes into rhetoric and
apostrophizes
virginity thus: “I do you no wrong,
Virgin: you
have chosen a
life of chastity on account of the present
distress: you
determined on the course in order
to be holy in body and spirit: be not
proud: you and your
married
sisters are members of the same
Church.”
6. I have perhaps explained his position at too great a
length, and become tedious to my reader; but I thought it best to draw
up in full array against myself all his efforts, and to muster all the
forces of the enemy with their squadrons and generals, lest after an
early victory there should spring up a series of other engagements. I
will not therefore do battle with single foes, nor will I be satisfied
with skirmishes in which I meet small detachments of my opponents. The
battle must be fought with the whole army of the enemy, and the
disorderly rabble, fighting more like brigands than soldiers, must be
repulsed by the skill and method of regular warfare. In the front rank
I will set the Apostle Paul, and, since he is the bravest of generals,
will arm him with his own weapons, that is to say, his own statements.
For the Corinthians asked many questions about this matter, and the
doctor of the Gentiles and master of the Church gave full replies. What
he decreed we may regard as the law of Christ speaking in him. At the
same time, when we begin to refute the several arguments, I trust the
reader will give me his attention even before the Apostle speaks, and
will not, in his eagerness to discuss the most weighty points, neglect
the premises, and rush at once to the conclusion.
7. Among other things the Corinthians asked in their
letter whether after embracing the faith of Christ they ought to be
unmarried, and for the sake of continence put away their wives, and
whether believing virgins were at liberty to marry. And again,
supposing that one of two Gentiles believed on Christ, whether the one
that believed should leave the one that believed not? And in case it
were allowable to take wives, would the Apostle direct that only
Christian wives, or Gentiles also, should be taken? Let us then
consider Paul’s replies to these inquiries.4290
“Now concerning the things whereof
ye wrote: It is good for a man not to touch a
woman. But, because of
fornications, let each man have his own
wife, and let each
woman have
her own
husband. Let the
husband render unto the
wife her due: and
likewise also the
wife unto the
husband. The
wife hath not
power over
her own body, but the
husband: And likewise also the
husband hath not
power over his own body, but the
wife.
Defraud ye not one the other,
except it be by consent for a
season, that ye may give yourselves unto
prayer, and may be together again, that
Satan tempt you not because of
your incontinency. But this I say by way of permission not of
commandment. Yet I would that all men were even as I myself. Howbeit
each man hath his own
gift from
God, one after this manner, and another
after that. But I say to the
unmarried and to
widows, it is good for
them if they
abide even as I. But if they have not continency, let them
marry: for it is better to marry than to
burn.” Let us turn back
to the
chief point of the evidence: “It is good,” he says,
“for a man not to touch a
woman.” If it is good not to
touch a
woman, it is bad to touch one: for there is no opposite to
goodness but badness. But if it be bad and the
evil is pardoned, the
reason for the concession is to prevent worse
evil. But surely a thing
which is only allowed because there may be something worse has only a
slight degree of
goodness. He would never have added “let each
man have his own
wife,” unless he had previously used the words
“but, because of
fornications.” Do away with
fornication,
and he will not say “let each man have his own
wife.” Just
as though one were to lay it down: “It is good to
feed on wheaten
bread, and to eat the finest
wheat flour,” and yet to prevent a
person pressed by
hunger from devouring cow-
dung, I may allow him to
eat
barley. Does it follow that the
wheat will not have its
peculiar
purity, because such an one prefers
barley to excrement? That is
naturally good which does not admit of comparison with what is bad, and
is not eclipsed because something else is preferred. At the same time
we must notice the
Apostle’s
prudence. He did not say, it is good
not to have a
wife: but, it is good not to touch a
woman: as though
there were
danger even in the touch: as though he who touched her,
would not
escape from her who “hunteth for the precious
life,” who causeth the young man’s understanding to
fly
away.
4291
“Can a man take
fire in his
bosom, and his
clothes not be
burned? Or can one
walk upon
hot coals,
and his
feet not be
scorched?” As then he who touches
fire is
instantly
burned, so by the mere touch the
peculiar nature of man and
woman is perceived, and the difference of sex is understood.
Heathen
fables relate how
4292
| 4292 Mithras was the
God of the Sun among the Persians. His worship was introduced at Rome
under the Emperors, and thence spread over the empire. |
Mithras and
4293
| 4293 Son of Vulcan,
king of Athens, and the first to drive a four-in-hand, Virg. G. iii.
113: “First to the chariot, Ericthonius dared four steeds to
join, and o’er the rapid wheels victorious hang.” |
Ericthonius were begotten of the soil,
in
stone or
earth, by raging
lust. Hence it was that our
Joseph,
because the Egyptian
woman wished to touch him, fled from her
hands,
and, as if he had been bitten by a
mad dog and
feared the spreading
poison, threw away the cloak which
she had touched. “But, because of
fornications let each man have
his own
wife, and let each
woman have her own
husband.” He did
not say, because of
fornication let each man marry a
wife: otherwise by
this excuse he would have thrown the reins to
lust, and whenever a
man’s
wife died, he would have to marry another to prevent
fornication, but “have his own
wife.” Let him he says have
and use his own
wife, whom he had before he became a
believer, and whom
it would have been good not to touch, and, when once he became a
follower of
Christ, to know only as a sister, not as a
wife unless
fornication should make it excusable to touch her. “The
wife hath
not
power over her own body, but the
husband: and likewise also the
husband hath not
power over his own body, but the
wife.” The
whole
question here concerns those who are
married men. Is it
lawful
for them to do what our
Lord forbade in the
Gospel, and to put away
their
wives? Whence it is that the
Apostle says, “It is good for
a man not to touch a
woman.” But inasmuch as he who is once
married has no
power to
abstain except by mutual consent, and may not
reject an unoffending partner, let the
husband render unto the
wife her
due. He bound himself voluntarily that he might be under compulsion to
render it. “
Defraud ye not one the other, except it be by consent
for a
season, that ye may give yourselves unto prayer.” What, I
pray you, is the quality of that good thing which
hinders prayer? which
does not allow the body of
Christ to be received? So long as I do the
husband’s part, I
fail in continency. The same
Apostle in another
place commands us to
pray always. If we are to
pray always, it follows
that we must never be in the
bondage of wedlock, for as often as I
render my
wife her due, I cannot
pray. The
Apostle Peter had experience
of the
bonds of
marriage. See how he fashions the
Church, and what
lesson he
teaches Christians:
4294
“Ye
husbands in like manner dwell with your
wives according to
knowledge,
giving honour unto the
woman, as unto the weaker
vessel, as being also
joint-heirs of the
grace of
life; to the end that your prayers be not
hindered.” Observe that, as S.
Paul before, because in both cases
the spirit is the same, so S. Peter now, says that prayers are
hindered
by the performance of
marriage duty. When he says
“likewise,” he challenges the
husbands to
imitate their
wives, because he has already given them
commandment:
4295
“beholding your
chaste
conversation coupled with
fear. Whose adorning let it not be the
outward adorning of plaiting the
hair, and of wearing
jewels of
gold,
or of putting on
apparel: but let it be the hidden man of the
heart, in
the
incorruptible apparel of a
meek and
quiet spirit, which is in the
sight of
God of great
price.” You see what
kind of wedlock he
enjoins.
Husbands and
wives are to dwell together according to
knowledge, so that they may know what
God wishes and desires, and give
honour to the
weak vessel,
woman. If we
abstain from intercourse, we
give honour to our
wives: if we do not
abstain, it is clear that insult
is the opposite of honour. He also tells the
wives to let their
husbands “see their
chaste behaviour, and the hidden man of the
heart, in the
incorruptible apparel of a
meek and
quiet spirit.”
Words truly worthy of an
apostle, and of
Christ’s
rock! He lays
down the
law for
husbands and
wives, condemns outward ornament, while
he
praises continence, which is the ornament of the inner man, as seen
in the
incorruptible apparel of a
meek and
quiet spirit. In effect he
says this: Since your outer man is
corrupt, and you have ceased to
possess the
blessing of incorruption characteristic of
virgins, at
least
imitate the incorruption of the spirit by subsequent
abstinence,
and what you cannot show in the body exhibit in the
mind. For these are
the
riches, and these the ornaments of your union, which
Christ
seeks.
8. The words which follow, “that ye may give
yourselves unto prayer, and may be together again,” might lead
one to suppose that the Apostle was expressing a wish and not making a
concession because of the danger of a greater fall. He therefore at
once adds, “lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency.” It
is a fine permission which is conveyed in the words “be together
again.” What it was that he blushed to call by its own name, and
thought only better than a temptation of Satan and the effect of
incontinence, we take trouble to discuss as if it were obscure,
although he has explained his meaning by saying, “this I say by
way of permission, not by way of command.” And do we still
hesitate to speak of marriage as a concession to weakness, not a thing
commanded, as though second and third marriages were not allowed on the
same ground, as though the doors of the Church were not opened by
repentance even to fornicators, and what is more, to the incestuous?
Take the case of the man who outraged his step-mother. Does not the
Apostle, after delivering him, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians,
to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit might be
saved, in the second Epistle take the offender back and strive to
prevent a brother from being swallowed up by overmuch grief. The
Apostle’s wish is one thing, his pardon another. If a wish be
expressed, it confers a right; if a
thing is only called pardonable, we are wrong in using it. If you wish
to know the Apostle’s real mind, you must take in what follows:
“but I would that all men were as I am.” Happy is the man
who is like Paul! Fortunate is he who attends to the Apostle’s
command, not to his concession. This, says he, I wish, this I desire
that ye be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ, who was a Virgin
born of a Virgin, uncorrupt of her who was uncorrupt. We, because we
are men, cannot imitate our Lord’s nativity; but we may at least
imitate His life. The former was the blessed prerogative of divinity,
the latter belongs to our human condition and is part of human effort.
I would that all men were like me, that while they are like me, they
may also become like Christ, to whom I am like. For4296
“he that believeth in
Christ
ought himself also to
walk even as He walked.”
4297
“Howbeit each man hath his own
gift from
God, one after this manner, and another after that.”
What I wish, he says, is clear. But since in the
Church there is a
diversity of
gifts, I acquiesce in
marriage, lest I should seem to
condemn nature. At the same time consider, that the
gift of
virginity
is one, that of
marriage, another. For were the
reward the same for the
married and for
virgins, he would never after enjoining continence have
said:
4298
“Each man hath his own
gift from
God, one after this manner, and another after that.”
Where there is a distinction in one particular, there is a
diversity
also in other points. I grant that even
marriage is a
gift of
God, but
between
gift and
gift there is great
diversity. In fact the
Apostle
himself speaking of the same person who had
repented of his incestuous
conduct, says:
4299
“so that
contrariwise ye should rather
forgive him and
comfort him, and to whom
ye
forgive anything, I
forgive also.” And that we might not think
a man’s
gift contemptible, he added,
4300
“for what I also have
forgiven, if I
have
forgiven anything, for your sakes have I
forgiven it, in the
presence of
Christ.” There is
diversity in the
gifts of
Christ.
Hence it is that by way of type
Joseph has a coat of many colours. And
in the forty-fifth psalm we read,
4301
“at
thy right
hand doth stand the
queen in a vesture of
gold wrought about
with divers colours.” And the
Apostle Peter says,
4302
“as heirs together of the manifold
grace of
God,” where the more expressive
Greek word
ποικίλης, i.e.,
varied, is used.
9. Then come the words4303
“But I say to the
unmarried and
to
widows, it is good for them if they
abide even as I. But if they
have not continency, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to
burn.” Having conceded to
married persons the enjoyment of
wedlock and pointed out his own wishes, he passes on to the
unmarried
and to
widows, sets before them his own
practice for imitation, and
calls them
happy if they so
abide. “But if they have not
continency, let them marry,” just as he said before “But
because of
fornications,” and “Lest
Satan tempt you,
because of your incontinency.” And he gives a reason for saying
“If they have not continency, let them marry,” viz.
“It is better to marry than to
burn.” The reason why it is
better to marry is that it is worse to
burn. Let burning
lust be
absent, and he will not say it is better to marry. The word
better always implies a comparison with something worse, not a
thing absolutely good and incapable of comparison. It is as though he
said, it is better to have one
eye than neither, it is better to stand
on one
foot and to support the
rest of the body with a stick, than to
crawl with broken legs. What do you say,
Apostle? I do not believe you
when you say “Though I be rude in
speech, yet am I not in
knowledge.” As
humility is the source of the sayings “For I
am not worthy to be called an
Apostle,” and “To me who am
the least of the
Apostles,” and “As to one
born out of due
time,” so here also we have an utterance of
humility. You know
the meaning of
language, or you would not quote
4304
Epimenides,
4305
Menander, and
4306
Aratus. When you are discussing
continence and
virginity you say, “It is good for a man not to
touch a
woman.” And, “It is good for them if they
abide
even as I.” And, “I think that this is good by reason of
the present
distress.” And, “That it is good for a man so
to be.” When you come to
marriage, you do not say it is good to
marry, because you cannot then add “
than to burn;”
but you say, “It is better to marry than to
burn.” If
marriage in itself be good, do not compare it with
fire, but simply say
“It is good to marry.” I suspect the
goodness of that thing
which is forced into the position of being only the lesser of two
evils. What I want is not a smaller
evil, but a thing absolutely
good.
10. So far the first section has been explained. Let us
now come to those which follow.4307
“But unto the
married I give charge, yea not I, but the
Lord.
That the
wife depart not from her
husband (but and if she depart, let
her remain
unmarried, or else be
reconciled to her
husband): and that
the
husband leave not his
wife. But to the
rest say I, not the
Lord: If
any
brother hath an unbelieving
wife, and she is content to dwell with him, let him not leave her,”
and so on to the words “As
God hath called each, so let him
walk.
And so
ordain I in all the
churches.” This passage has no bearing
on our present
controversy. For he
ordains, according to the
mind of
the
Lord, that excepting the cause of
fornication, a
wife must not be
put away, and that a
wife who has been put away, may not, so long as
her
husband lives, be
married to another, or at all events that her
duty is to be
reconciled to her
husband. But in the case of those who
are already
married at the time of conversion, that is to say,
supposing one of the two were a
believer, he enjoins that the
believer
shall not put away the
unbeliever. And after stating his reason,
viz., that the
unbeliever who is
unwilling to leave the
believer
becomes thereby a candidate for the
faith, he commands, on the other
hand, that if the
unbeliever reject the
faithful one on account of the
faith of
Christ, the
believer ought to depart, lest
husband or
wife be
preferred to
Christ, in comparison with Whom we must hold even
life
itself cheap. Yet at the present day many
women despising the
Apostle’s command, are joined to
heathen husbands, and prostitute
the
temples of
Christ to
idols. They do not understand that they are
part of His body though indeed they are His ribs. The
Apostle is
lenient to the union of
unbelievers, who having (believing)
husbands,
afterwards come to believe in
Christ. He does not extend his indulgence
to those
women who, although
Christians, have been
married to
heathen
husbands. To these he elsewhere says,
4308
“Be not unequally yoked with
unbelievers: for what
fellowship have
righteousness and
iniquity? or
what
communion hath
light with
darkness? And what
concord hath
Christ
with Belial? or what portion hath a
believer with an
unbeliever? And
what
agreement hath a
temple of
God with
idols? For we are a
temple of
the living
God.” Although I know that
crowds of matrons will be
furious against me: although I know that just as they have shamelessly
despised the
Lord, so they will rave at me who am but a flea and the
least of
Christians: yet I will speak out what I think. I will say what
the
Apostle has taught me, that they are not on the side of
righteousness, but of
iniquity: not of
light, but of
darkness: that
they do not
belong to
Christ, but to Belial: that they are not
temples
of the living
God, but
shrines and
idols of the dead. And, if you wish
to see more clearly how utterly
unlawful it is for a
Christian woman to
marry a Gentile, consider what the same
Apostle says,
4309
“A
wife is bound for so long time
as her
husband liveth: but if the
husband be dead, she is free to be
married to whom she will; only in the
Lord,” that is, to a
Christian. He who allows second and third marriages in the
Lord,
forbids first marriages with a Gentile. Whence
Abraham also makes his
servant swear upon his thigh, that is, on
Christ, Who was to spring
from his
seed, that he would not bring an
alien-
born as a
wife for his
son
Isaac. And Ezra checked an
offence of this
kind against
God by
making his
countrymen put away their
wives. And the
prophet Malachi
thus speaks,
4310
“
Judah hath dealt
treacherously, and an
abomination is
committed in
Israel and in
Jerusalem; for
Judah hath
profaned the
holiness of the
Lord which he
loveth, and hath
married the
daughter of a
strange god. The
Lord will
cut off the man that doeth this,
4311
| 4311 R.V. “To
the man that doeth this, him that waketh and him that
answereth.” |
him that
teacheth and him that learneth, out of the tents of
Jacob, and him that
offers an offering unto the
Lord of
hosts.” I have said this that
they who compare
marriage with
virginity, may at least know that such
marriages as these are on a lower level than digamy and trigamy.
11. In the above discussion the Apostle has taught that
the believer ought not to depart from the unbeliever, but remain in
marriage as the faith found them, and that each man whether married or
single should continue as he was when baptized into Christ; and then he
suddenly introduces the metaphors of circumcision and uncircumcision,
of bond and free, and under those metaphors treats of the married and
unmarried.4312
“Was any man called being
circumcised? let him not become
uncircumcised.
Circumcision is nothing,
and uncircumcision is nothing: but the keeping of the
commandments of
God. Let each man
abide in that calling wherein he was called. Wast
thou called being a bondservant? Care not for it: but even if thou
canst become free, use it rather. For he that was called in the
Lord
being a bondservant, is the
Lord’s freedman; likewise he that was
called, being free, is
Christ’s bondservant. Ye were
bought with
a
price; become not bondservants of men.
Brethren, let each man,
wherein he was called, therein
abide with
God.” Some, I suppose,
will find fault with the
Apostle’s way of reasoning. I would
therefore ask first, What we are to infer from his suddenly passing in
a discussion concerning
husbands and
wives to a comparison of
Jew and
Gentile,
bond and free, and then returning, when this point is settled,
to the
question about
virgins, and telling us “Concerning
virgins
I have no
commandment from the
Lord”; what has a comparison of
Jew and Gentile,
bond and free, to do with wedlock and
virginity? In
the next place, how are we to
understand the words “Hath any been called in uncircumcision, let
him not be circumcised”?
4313
| 4313 But S. Paul
hints at a surgical operation. See Josephus, Antiq. Bk. xii. c.
v. sec. 1, where certain apostates from Judaism are said “to have
hid their circumcision that even when they were naked [in the
gymnasium] they might appear to be Greeks.” See also Celsus, Bk.
vii. c. xxv. |
Can a man
who has lost his foreskin restore it again at his
pleasure? Then, in
what sense are we to explain “For he that was called in the
Lord,
being a bondservant, is the
Lord’s freedman: likewise he that was
called, being free, is
Christ’s bondservant.” Fourthly, how
is it that he who commanded
servants to obey their masters according to
the
flesh, now says, “Become not bondservants of men.”
Lastly, how are we to connect with
slavery, or with
circumcision, his
saying “
Brethren, let each man, wherein he was called, therein
abide with
God,” which even
contradicts his previous opinion. We
heard him say “Become not bondservants of men.” How can we
then possibly
abide in that vocation wherein we were called, when many
at the time they became
believers had masters according to the
flesh,
whose bondservants they are now forbidden to be? Moreover, what has the
argument about our
abiding in the vocation wherein we were called, to
do with
circumcision? for in another place the same
Apostle cries aloud
“Behold I
Paul tell you that, if ye be circumcised,
Christ shall
profit you nothing”? We must conclude, therefore, that a higher
meaning should be given to
circumcision and uncircumcision,
bond and
free, and that these words must be taken in close connection with what
has gone before. “Was anyone called being circumcised? let him
not become
uncircumcised.” If, he says, at the time you were
called and became a
believer in
Christ, if I say, you were called being
circumcised from a
wife, that is,
unmarried, do not marry a
wife, that
is, do not become
uncircumcised, lest you lay upon the
freedom of
circumcision and chastity the burden of
marriage. Again, if anyone was
called in uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised. You had a
wife,
he says, when you believed: do not think the
faith of
Christ a reason
for disagreement, because
God called us in
peace.
4314
“
Circumcision is nothing, and
uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the
commandments of
God.” For neither celibacy nor
marriage availeth anything without
works, since even
faith, which is specially characteristic of
Christians, if it have not works, is said to be dead, and vestal
virgins and Juno’s
widows might upon these terms be numbered with
the
saints. “Let each man in the vocation wherein he was called,
therein
abide.” Whether he had, or had not, a
wife when he
believed, let him remain in that condition in which he was when called.
Accordingly he does not so strongly urge
virgins to be
married, as
forbid
divorce. And as he debars those who have
wives from putting them
away, so he
cuts off from
virgins the
power of being
married.
“Thou wast called being a
slave, heed it not; but even if thou
canst become free, use it rather.” Even if you have, he says, a
wife, and are bound to her, and pay her due, and have not
power over
your own body; or if, to speak more clearly, you are the bondservant of
your
wife, be not
sad upon that account, nor
sigh for the loss of your
virginity. But even if you can find some causes of discord, do not, for
the sake of thoroughly enjoying the
liberty of chastity,
seek your own
welfare by destroying another. Keep your
wife awhile, and do not go too
fast for her lagging footsteps: wait till she follows. If you are
patient, your spouse will become a sister, “For he that was
called in the
Lord, being a bondservant, is the
Lord’s freedman:
likewise, he that was called being free, is
Christ’s
bondservant.” He gives his reasons for not wishing
wives to be
forsaken. He therefore says, I command that Gentiles who believe on
Christ do not abandon the
married state in which they were before
embracing the
faith: for he who had a
wife when he became a
believer,
is not so strictly
devoted to the service of
God as
virgins and
unmarried persons. But, in a manner, he has more
freedom, and the reins
of his
bondage are relaxed; and, while he is the bondservant of a
wife,
he is, so to speak, the freedman of the
Lord. Moreover, he who when
called by the
Lord had not a
wife and was free from the
bondage of
wedlock, he is truly
Christ’s bondservant. What
happiness to be
the bondservant, not of a
wife but of
Christ, to serve not the
flesh,
but the spirit!
4315
“For he
who is joined unto the
Lord is one spirit.” There was some
fear
that by saying “Wast thou called being a bondservant? Care not
for it: but, even if thou canst become free, use it rather,” he
might seem to have flouted continence, and to have given us up to the
slavery of
marriage. He therefore makes a remark which removes all
cavil: “Ye were
bought with a
price, become not
servants of
men.” We have been
redeemed with the most precious
blood of
Christ: the
Lamb was slain for us, and having been sprinkled with
hyssop and the
warm drops of His
blood, we have
rejected poisonous
pleasure. Why do we at whose
baptism Pharaoh died and all his
host was
drowned, again turn back in our
hearts to Egypt, and after the
manna,
angels’
food,
sigh for the garlic and the onions and the
cucumbers, and
Pharaoh’s
meat?
12. Having discussed
marriage and continency he at length comes to virginity and says4316
“Now concerning
virgins I have no
commandment of the
Lord: but I give my judgement, as one that hath
obtained
mercy of the
Lord to be
faithful. I think therefore that this
is good by reason of the present
distress, namely, that it is good for
a man to be as he is.” Here our opponent goes utterly
wild with
exultation: this is his strongest battering-ram with which he shakes
the wall of
virginity. “See,” says he, “the
Apostle
confesses that as regards
virgins he has no
commandment of the
Lord,
and he who had with
authority laid down the
law respecting
husbands and
wives, does not
dare to command what the
Lord has not enjoined. And
rightly too. For what is enjoined is commanded, what is commanded must
be done, and that which must be done implies
punishment if it be not
done. For it is useless to order a thing to be done and yet leave the
individual free to do it or not do it. If the
Lord had commanded
virginity He would have seemed to
condemn marriage, and to do away with
the
seed-plot of
mankind, of which
virginity itself is a growth. If He
had
cut off the root, how was He to expect fruit? If the
foundations
were not first laid, how was He to build the edifice, and put on the
roof to cover all! Excavators toil hard to remove
mountains; the
bowels
of the
earth are pierced in the search for
gold. And, when the tiny
particles, first by the blast of the
furnace, then by the
hand of the
cunning workman have been fashioned into an ornament, men do not call
him
blessed who has separated the
gold from the dross, but him who
wears the
beautiful gold. Do not
marvel then if, placed as we are, amid
temptations of the
flesh and incentives to vice, the angelic
life be
not exacted of us, but merely recommended. If
advice be given, a man is
free to proffer obedience; if there be a command, he is a
servant bound
to compliance. “I have no
commandment,” he says, “of
the
Lord: but I give my judgement, as one that hath obtained
mercy of
the
Lord to be
faithful.” If you have no
commandment of the
Lord,
how
dare you give judgement without orders? The
Apostle will reply: Do
you wish me to give orders where the
Lord has offered a favour rather
than laid down a
law? The great Creator and Fashioner, knowing the
weakness of the
vessel which he made, left
virginity open to those whom
He addressed; and shall I, the
teacher of the Gentiles, who have become
all things to all men that I might
gain all, shall I lay upon the necks
of
weak believers from the very first the burden of perpetual chastity?
Let them
4317
begin with short periods of
release from the
marriage bond, and give themselves unto prayer, that
when they have
tasted the sweets of chastity they may desire the
perpetual possession of that wherewith they were temporarily
delighted.
The
Lord, when tempted by the
Pharisees, and asked whether according to
the
law of
Moses it was permitted to put away a
wife, forbade the
practice altogether. After weighing His words the
disciples said to
Him:
4318
“If the case of the man is so
with his
wife, it is not expedient to marry. But He said unto them, all
men cannot receive this saying, but they to whom it is given. For there
are
eunuchs, which were so
born from their mother’s
womb: and
there are
eunuchs, which were made
eunuchs by men: and there are
eunuchs, which made themselves
eunuchs for the
kingdom of
heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive
it.” The reason is plain why the
Apostle said, “concerning
virgins I have no
commandment of the
Lord.” Surely; because the
Lord had previously said “All men cannot receive the word, but
they to whom it is given,” and “He that is able to receive
it, let him receive it.”
4319
| 4319 Jerome uses the
Greek word ἀγωνοθέτης
—President of the Games. |
The
Master of the
Christian race offers the
reward, invites candidates to
the course, holds in His
hand the
prize of
virginity, points to the
fountain of
purity, and
cries aloud
4320
“If
any man
thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” “He that
is able to receive it, let him receive it.” He does not say, you
must drink, you must
run, willing or
unwilling: but whoever is willing
and able to
run and to drink, he shall
conquer, he shall be satisfied.
And therefore
Christ loves virgins more than others, because they
willingly give what was not commanded them. And it indicates greater
grace to offer what you are not bound to give, than to render what is
exacted of you. The
apostles, contemplating the burden of a
wife,
exclaimed, “If the case of the man is so with his
wife, it is not
expedient to marry.” Our
Lord thought well of their view. You
rightly think, said He, that it is not expedient for a man who is
hastening to the
kingdom of
heaven to take a
wife: but it is a hard
matter, and all men do not receive the saying, but they to whom it has
been given. Some are
eunuchs by
nature, others by the
violence of men.
Those
eunuchs please Me who are such not of necessity, but of free
choice. Willingly do I take them into my
bosom who have made themselves
eunuchs for the
kingdom of
heaven’s sake, and in order to
worship
Me have
renounced the condition of
their
birth. We must now explain the words, “Those who have made
themselves
eunuchs for the
kingdom of
heaven’s sake.” If
they who have made themselves
eunuchs have the
reward of the
kingdom of
heaven, it follows that they who have not made themselves such cannot
be placed with those who have. He who is able, he says, to receive it,
let him receive it. It is a mark of great
faith and of great
virtue, to
be the pure
temple of
God, to offer oneself a whole
burnt-offering,
and, according to the same
apostle, to be holy both in body and in
spirit. These are the
eunuchs, who thinking themselves dry
trees
because of their impotence, hear by the mouth of
4321
Isaiah that they have a place prepared
in
heaven for sons and
daughters. Their type is
4322
Ebed-melech the
eunuch in Jeremiah,
and the
eunuch of
Queen Candace in the
4323
Acts of the
Apostles, who on account
of the
strength of his
faith gained the name of a
man. These are
they to whom Clement, who was the successor of the
Apostle Peter, and
of whom the
Apostle Paul makes mention, wrote letters, directing almost
the whole of his
discourse to the subject of
virgin purity. After them
there is a long series of apostolic men, martyrs, and men illustrious
no less for
holiness than for eloquence, with whom we may very easily
become acquainted through their own writings.
4324
“I think, therefore,” he
says, “that this is good for the present
distress.” What is
this
distress which, in contempt of the
marriage tie, longs for the
liberty of
virginity?
4325
“Woe
unto them that are with
child and to them that give suck in those
days.” We have not here a condemnation of
harlots and brothels,
of whose
damnation there is no doubt, but of the swelling
womb, and
wailing infancy, the fruit as well as the
work of
marriage. “For
it is good for a man so to be.” If it is good for a man so to be,
it is bad for a man not so to be.
4326
“Art thou bound unto a
wife?
Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a
wife?
Seek not a
wife.” Each one of us has his
appointed bounds; let me have what
is mine, and keep your own. If thou art bound to a
wife, give her not a
bill of
divorce. If I am loosed from a
wife, I will not
seek a
wife. As
I do not dissolve marriages once contracted: so you should not
bind
what is loosed. And at the same time the meaning of the words must be
taken into account. He who has a
wife is regarded as a
debtor, and is
said to be
uncircumcised, to be the
servant of his
wife, and like bad
servants to be
bound. But he who has no
wife, in the first place
owes no man anything, then is circumcised, thirdly is free, lastly, is
loosed.
13. Let us run through the remaining points, for our
author is so voluminous that we cannot linger over every detail.
“But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned.” It is one
thing not to sin, another to do good. “And if a virgin marry, she
hath not sinned.” Not that virgin who has once for all dedicated
herself to the service of God: for, should one of these marry, she will
have damnation, because she has made of no account her first faith.
But, if our adversary objects that this saying relates to widows, we
reply that it applies with still greater force to virgins, since
marriage is forbidden even to widows whose previous marriage had been
lawful. For virgins who marry after consecration are rather incestuous
than adulterous. And, for fear he should by saying, “And if a
virgin marry, she hath not sinned,” again stimulate the unmarried
to be married, he immediately checks himself, and by introducing
another consideration, invalidates his previous concession.
“Yet,” says he, “such shall have tribulation in the
flesh.” Who are they who shall have tribulation in the flesh?
They to whom he had before indulgently said “But and if thou
marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not
sinned. Yet such shall have tribulation in the flesh.” We in our
inexperience thought that marriage had at least the joys of the flesh.
But if they who are married have tribulation even in the flesh, which
is imagined to be the sole source of their pleasure, what else is there
to marry for, when in the spirit, and in the mind, and in the flesh
itself there is tribulation. “But I would spare you.” Thus,
he says, I allege tribulation as a motive, as though there were not
greater obligations to refrain. “But this I say, brethren, the
time is shortened, that henceforth both those that have wives may be as
though they had none.” I am by no means now discussing virgins,
of whose happiness no one entertains a doubt. I am coming to the
married. The time is short, the Lord is at hand. Even though we lived
nine hundred years, as did men of old, yet we ought to think that short
which must one day have an end, and cease to be. But, as things are,
and it is not so much the joy as the tribulation of marriage that is
short, why do we take wives whom we shall soon be compelled to lose?4327
“And those that
weep, and those
that
rejoice, and those that
buy, and those that use the
world, as
though they wept not, as though they
rejoiced not, as though they
bought not, as though they did not use the
world: for the fashion of
this
world passeth away.” If
the
world, which comprehends all things, passes away, yea if the
fashion and intercourse of the
world vanishes like the
clouds, amongst
the other works of the
world,
marriage too will
vanish away. For after
the resurrection there will be no wedlock. But if
death be the end of
marriage, why do we not voluntarily embrace the inevitable? And why do
we not, encouraged by the
hope of the
reward, offer to
God that which
must be wrung from us against our will. “He that is
unmarried is
careful for the things of the
Lord, how he may please the
Lord: but he
that is
married is careful for the things of the
world, how he may
please his
wife, and is
4328
| 4328 See Rev. Ver.
Margin. |
divided.” Let us look at the difference between the cares of the
virgin, and those of the
married man. The
virgin longs to please the
Lord, the
husband to please his
wife, and that he may please her he is
careful for the things of the
world, which will of course pass away
with the
world. “And he is divided,” that is to say, is
distracted with manifold cares and miseries. This is not the place to
describe the difficulties of
marriage, and to
revel in rhetorical
commonplaces. I think I
delivered myself fully as regards this point in
my argument against
4329
Helvidius,
and in the book which I addressed to
4330
Eustochium. At all events
4331
| 4331 Jerome
apparently, here, alludes to some early work of Tertullian not now
extant. |
Tertullian, while still a young man,
gave himself full play with this subject. And my
teacher,
4332
| 4332 Jerome often
alludes to his relation to Gregory, in the year 381; he was present at
the council of Constantinople, of which Gregory was then the
bishop. |
Gregory of Nazianzus, discussed
virginity and
marriage in some
Greek verses. I now briefly beg my
reader to note that in the
Latin manuscripts we have the reading
“there is a difference also between the
virgin and the
wife.” The words, it is true, have a meaning of their own, and
have by me, as well as by others, been so explained as showing the
bearing of the passage. Yet they lack apostolic
authority, since the
Apostle’s words are as we have translated them—“He is
careful for the things of the
world, how he may please his
wife,
4333
| 4333 This
rendering supposes κὰι
μεμερίσται to
be joined to the preceding sentence. The Vulgate has et divisus
est, and so also the Æthiopic Version. |
and he is divided.” Having
laid down this, he passes to the
virgins and the continent, and says
“The
woman that is
unmarried and a
virgin thinks of the things of
the
Lord, that she may be holy in body and in spirit.” Not every
unmarried woman is also a
virgin. But every
virgin is of course
unmarried. It may be, that regard for elegance of expression led him to
repeat the same idea by means of another word and speak of “a
woman unmarried and a
virgin”; or at least he may have wished to
give to “
unmarried” the definite meaning of
“
virgin,” so that we might not suppose him to include
harlots, united to no one by the
fixed bonds of wedlock, among the
“
unmarried.” Of what, then, does she that is
unmarried and
a
virgin think? “The things of the
Lord, that she may be holy
both in body and in spirit.” Supposing there were nothing else,
and that no greater
reward followed
virginity, this would be motive
enough for her choice, to think of the things of the
Lord. But he
immediately points out the contents of her thought—that she may
be holy both in body and spirit. For there are
virgins in the
flesh,
not in the spirit, whose body is intact, their
soul corrupt. But that
virgin is a
sacrifice to
Christ, whose
mind has not been
defiled by
thought, nor her
flesh by
lust. On the other
hand, she who is
married
thinks of the things of the
world, how she may please her
husband. Just
as the man who has a
wife is anxious for the things of the
world, how
he may please his
wife, so the
married woman thinks of the things of
the
world, how she may please her
husband. But we are not of this
world, which lieth in
wickedness, the fashion of which passeth away,
and concerning which the
Lord said to the
Apostles,
4334
“If ye were of the
world, the
world would
love its own.” And lest perchance someone might
suppose that he was laying the heavy burden of chastity on
unwilling
shoulders, he at once adds his reasons for persuading to it, and says:
4335
“And this I say for your
profit;
not that I may cast a
snare upon you, but for that which is seemly, and
that ye may attend upon the
Lord without distraction.” The
Latin
words do not convey the meaning of the
Greek. What words shall we use
to render
Πρὸς τὸ
εὔσχημον κὰι
εὐπρόσεδρον
τῷ Κυρί& 251·
ἀπερισπάστως́̈ The difficulty of translation accounts
for the fact that the clause is completely wanting in
Latin
manuscripts. Let us, however, use the passage as we have translated it.
The
Apostle does not lay a
snare upon us, nor does he compel us to be
what we do not wish to be; but he gives his
advice as to what is fair
and seemly, he would have us attend upon the
Lord and ever be anxious
about that service, and await the
Lord’s will, so that like
active and well-armed
soldiers we may obey orders, and may do so
without distraction, which, according to
4336
Ecclesiastes, is given to the men of
this
world that they may be
exercised thereby. But if anyone considers
that his
virgin, that is, his
flesh, is
wanton and boiling with
lust,
and cannot be
bridled, and he must
do one of two things, either take a
wife or fall, let him do what he
will, he does not
sin if he marry. Let him do, he says, what he will,
not what he ought. He does not
sin if he marry a
wife; yet, he does not
well if he marry:
4337
“But
he that standeth
stedfast in his
heart, having no necessity, but hath
power as touching his own will, and hath determined this in his own
heart, to keep his own
virgin, shall do well. So then both he that
giveth his own
virgin in
marriage doeth well; and he that giveth her
not in
marriage shall do better.” With marked propriety he had
previously said “He who marries a
wife does not
sin”: here
he tells us “He that keepeth his own
virgin doeth well.”
But it is one thing not to
sin, another to do well.
4338
“Depart from
evil,” he
says, “and do good.” The former we
forsake, the latter we
follow. In this last
lies perfection. But whereas he says “and he
that giveth his
virgin in
marriage doeth well,” it might be
supposed that our remark does not hold good; he therefore forthwith
detracts from this seeming good and puts it in the shade by comparing
it with another, and saying, “and he that giveth her not in
marriage shall do better.” If he had not intended to draw the
inference of doing better, he would never have previously referred to
doing well. But where there is something good and something better, the
reward is not in both cases the same, and where the
reward is not one
and the same, there of course the
gifts are different. The difference,
then, between
marriage and
virginity is as great as that between not
sinning and doing well; nay rather, to speak less harshly, as great as
between good and better.
14. He has ended his discussion of wedlock and
virginity, and has carefully steered between the two precepts without
turning to the right hand or to the left. He has followed the royal
road and fulfilled the command4339
not to be
righteous over much. Now again he compares monogamy with digamy, and as
he had subordinated
marriage to
virginity, so he makes second marriages
inferior to first, and says,
4340
“A
wife
is bound for so long time as her
husband liveth; but if the
husband be
dead, she is free to be
married to whom she will; only in the
Lord. But
she is happier if she
abide as she is, after my judgement: and I think
that I also have the Spirit of
God.” He allows second marriages,
but to such persons as wish for them and are not able to contain;
lest,
4341
having “
waxed wanton against
Christ,” they desire to marry, “having condemnation,
because they have
rejected their first
faith;” and he makes the
concession because many had already turned aside after
Satan.
4342
“But,” says he,
“they will be happier if they
abide as they are,” and he
immediately adds the weight of Apostolic
authority, “after my
judgement.” And that an
Apostle’s
authority might not, like
that of an ordinary man, be without weight, he added, “and I
think that I also have the Spirit of
God.” When he incites to
continence, it is not by the judgement or spirit of man, but by the
judgement and Spirit of
God; when, however, he grants the indulgence of
marriage, he does not mention the Spirit of
God, but weighs his
judgement with
wisdom, and adapts the severity of the strain to the
weakness of the individual. In this sense we must take the whole of the
following passage:
4343
“For
the
woman that hath a
husband is bound by
law to the
husband while he
liveth; but if the
husband die, she is discharged from the
law of the
husband. So then if, while the
husband liveth, she be joined to another
man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if the
husband die, she is
free from the
law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be joined
to another man.” And similarly the words to Timothy,
4344
“I desire therefore that the
younger
widows marry, bear
children, rule the household, give none
occasion to the
adversary for reviling: for already some are turned
aside after
Satan,” and so on. For as on account of the
danger of
fornication he allows
virgins to marry, and makes that excusable which
in itself is not desirable, so to
avoid this same
fornication, he
allows second marriages to
widows. For it is better to know a single
husband, though he be a second or third, than to have many paramours:
that is, it is more tolerable for a
woman to prostitute herself to one
man than to many. At all events this is so if the Samaritan
woman in
John’s
Gospel who said she had her sixth
husband was reproved by
the
Lord because he was not her
husband. For where there are more
husbands than one the proper idea of a
husband, who is a single person,
is
destroyed. At the beginning one rib was turned into one
wife.
“And they two,” he says, “shall be one
flesh”:
not three, or four; otherwise, how can they be any longer two, if they
are several.
Lamech, a man of
blood and a murderer, was the first who
divided one
flesh between two
wives. Fratricide and digamy were
abolished by the same
punishment—that of the deluge. The one was
avenged seven times, the other seventy times seven. The guilt is as
widely different as are the numbers. What the
holiness of second
marriage is, appears from this—that a person twice
married4345
| 4345 See 1 Tim. iii. 12. Most ancient writers interpreted S.
Paul’s words as referring to second marriages after loss of first
wife, however happening. And certain Councils decided in the same
sense, e.g. Neocæsarea (a.d. 314).
Ellicott’s Pastoral Ep., fifth ed., p. 41. |
cannot be enrolled in the ranks of the
clergy, and so the
Apostle tells Timothy,
4346
“Let none be enrolled as a
widow under threescore years old, having been the
wife of one
man.” The whole command concerns those
widows who are supported
on the
alms of the
Church. The age is therefore limited, so that those
only may receive the
food of the
poor who can no longer
work. And at
the same time, consider that she who has had two
husbands, even though
she be a
widow, decrepit, and in want, is not a worthy recipient of the
Church’s funds. But if she be deprived of the
bread of
charity,
how much more is she deprived of that
bread which cometh down from
heaven, and of which if a man eat
unworthily, he shall be
guilty of
outrage offered to the body and the
blood of
Christ?
15. The passages, however, which I have adduced in
support of my position and in which it is permitted to widows, if they
so desire, to marry again, are interpreted by some concerning those
widows who had lost their husbands and were found in that condition
when they became Christians. For, supposing a person baptized and her
husband dead, it would not be consistent if the Apostle were to bid her
marry another, when he enjoins even those who have wives to be as
though they had them not. And this is why the number of wives which a
man may take is not defined, because when Christian baptism has been
received, even though a third or a fourth wife has been taken, she is
reckoned as the first. Otherwise, if, after baptism and after the death
of a first husband, a second is taken why should not a sixth after the
death of the second, third, fourth, and fifth, and so on? For it is
possible, that through some strange misfortune, or by the judgement of
God cutting short repeated marriages, a young woman may have several
husbands, while an old woman may be left a widow by her first husband
in extreme age. The first Adam was married once: the second was
unmarried. Let the supporters of second marriages shew us as their
leader a third Adam who was twice married. But granted that Paul
allowed second marriages: upon the same grounds it follows that he
allows even third and fourth marriages, or a woman may marry as often
as her husband dies. The Apostle was forced to choose many things which
he did not like. He circumcised Timothy, and shaved his own head,
practised going barefoot, let his hair grow long, and cut it at
Cenchrea. And he had certainly chastised the Galatians, and blamed
Peter because for the sake of Jewish observances he separated himself
from the Gentiles. As then in other points connected with the
discipline of the Church he was a Jew to Jews, a Gentile to Gentiles,
and was made all things to all men, that he might gain all: so too he
allowed second marriages to incontinent persons, and did not limit the
number of marriages, in order that women, although they saw themselves
permitted to take a second husband, in the same way as a third or a
fourth was allowed, might blush to take a second, lest they should be
compared to those who were three or four times married. If more than
one husband be allowed, it makes no difference whether he be a second
or a third, because there is no longer a question of single marriage.4347
“All things are
lawful, but not
all things are expedient.” I do not
condemn second, nor third,
nor, pardon the expression, eighth marriages: I will go still further
and say that I welcome even a penitent whoremonger. Things that are
equally
lawful must be weighed in an even balance.
16. But he takes us to the Old Testament, and beginning
with Adam goes on to Zacharias and Elizabeth. He next confronts us with
Peter and the rest of the Apostles. We are therefore bound to traverse
the same course of argument and show that chastity was always preferred
to the condition of marriage. And as regards Adam and Eve we must
maintain that before the fall they were virgins in Paradise: but after
they sinned, and were cast out of Paradise, they were immediately
married. Then we have the passage,4348
“For this cause shall a man leave his
father and mother, and
shall
cleave to his
wife, and the twain shall become one
flesh,”
in explanation of which the
Apostle straightway adds,
4349
“This
mystery is great, but I
speak in regard of
Christ, and of the
Church.”
Christ in the
flesh is a
virgin, in the spirit he is once
married. For he has one
Church, concerning which the same
Apostle says,
4350
“
Husbands,
love your
wives, even
as
Christ also
loved the
Church.” If
Christ loves the
Church
holily, chastely, and without spot, let
husbands also
love their
wives
in chastity. And let everyone know how to possess his
vessel in
sanctification and honour, not in the
lust of concupiscence, as the
Gentiles who know not
God:
4351
“For
God
called us not for uncleanness, but in
sanctification: seeing that ye
have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being
renewed unto
knowledge after the image of him that
created him: where there cannot
be male and
female,
Greek and
Jew,
circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian,
bondman, freeman: but
Christ is all, and in
all.” The link of
marriage is not found in the image of the
Creator. When difference of sex is done away, and we are putting off
the old man, and putting on the new, then we are being
born again into
Christ a
virgin, who was both
born of a
virgin, and is
born again
through
4352
| 4352 Lit. through a
virgin. The allusion is, probably, to his baptism by a virgin,
i.e., John Baptist. |
virginity. And whereas he says
“Be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth,” it
was necessary first to
plant the
wood and to let it grow, so that there
might be an after-growth for cutting down. And at the same time we must
bear in
mind the meaning of the phrase, “replenish the
earth.”
Marriage replenishes the
earth,
virginity fills
Paradise.
This too we must observe, at least if we would faithfully follow the
Hebrew, that while Scripture on the first, third, fourth, fifth, and
sixth days relates that, having
finished the works of each, “
God
saw that it was good,” on the second day it omitted this
altogether, leaving us to understand that two is not a good number
because it
destroys unity, and prefigures the
marriage compact. Hence
it was that all the
animals which
Noah took into the
ark by pairs were
unclean. Odd numbers denote cleanness. And yet by the double number is
represented another
mystery: that not even in
beasts and
unclean birds
is second
marriage approved. For
unclean animals went in two and two,
and
clean ones by sevens, so that
Noah after the
flood might be able to
immediately offer to
God sacrifices from the latter.
17. But if Enoch was translated, and Noah was preserved
at the deluge, I do not think that Enoch was translated because he had
a wife, but because he was4353
the first to
call upon
God and to believe in the Creator; and the
Apostle Paul fully
instructs us concerning him in the
Epistle to the Hebrews.
Noah,
moreover, who was
preserved as a
kind of second root for the human
race, must of course be
preserved together with his
wife and sons,
although in this there is a Scripture
mystery. The
ark,
4354
according to the
Apostle Peter, was a
type of the
Church, in which eight
souls were
saved. When
Noah entered
into it, both he and his sons were separated from their
wives; but when
he landed from it, they united in pairs, and what had been separated in
the
ark, that is, in the
Church, was joined together in the intercourse
of the
world. And at the same time if the
ark had many compartments and
little
chambers, and was made with second and third
stories, and was
filled with different
beasts, and was furnished with dwellings, great
or
small, according to the
kind of
animal, I think all this
diversity
in the compartments was a figure of the manifold character of the
Church.
18. He raises the objection that when God gave his
second blessing, permission was granted to eat flesh, which had not in
the first benediction been allowed. He should know that just as divorce
according to the Saviour’s word was not permitted from the
beginning, but on account of the hardness of our heart was a concession
of Moses to the human race, so too the eating of flesh was unknown
until the deluge. But after the deluge, like the quails given in the
desert to the murmuring people, the poison of flesh-meat was offered to
our teeth. The Apostle writing to the Ephesians4355
teaches that
God had purposed in the
fulness of time to sum up and
renew in
Christ Jesus all things which
are in
heaven and in
earth. Whence also the Saviour himself in the
Revelation of John says,
4356
“I am
Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the ending.” At the beginning
of the human race we neither ate
flesh, nor gave bills of
divorce, nor
suffered circumcision for a sign. Thus we reached the deluge. But after
the deluge, together with the giving of the
law which no one could
fulfil,
flesh was given for
food, and
divorce was allowed to
hard-hearted men, and the knife of
circumcision was applied, as though
the
hand of
God had fashioned us with something superfluous. But once
Christ has come in the end of time, and
Omega passed into Alpha and
turned the end into the beginning, we are no longer allowed
divorce,
nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat
flesh, for the
Apostle says,
4357
“It is good not to eat
flesh,
nor to drink
wine.” For
wine as well as
flesh was
consecrated
after the deluge.
19. What shall I say of Abraham who had three wives, as
Jovinianus says, and received circumcision as a sign of his faith? If
we follow him in the number of his wives, let us also follow him in
circumcision. We must not partly follow, partly reject him. Isaac,
moreover, the husband of one wife, Rebecca, prefigures the Church of
Christ, and reproves the wantonness of second marriage. And if Jacob
had two pairs of wives and concubines, and our opponent will not admit
that blear-eyed Leah, ugly and prolific, was a type of the synagogue,
but that Rachel, beautiful and long barren, indicated the mystery of
the Church, let me remind him that when Jacob did this thing he was among the Assyrians, and in
Mesopotamia in bondage to a hard master. But when he wished to enter
the holy land, he raised on Mount Galeed4358
the heap of witness, in token that
the
lord of
Mesopotamia had
failed to find anything among his
baggage,
and there swore that he would never return to the place of his
bondage;
and when,
4359
| 4359 Gen. xxxii. 25, 28, 31. |
after wrestling with the
angel at
the
brook Jabbok, he began to limp, because the great muscle of his
thigh was withered, he at once
gained the name of
Israel.
4360
Then the
wife whom he once
loved, and
for whom he had served, was slain by the son of
sorrow near Bethlehem
which was destined to be the birthplace of our
Lord, the herald of
virginity: and the intimacies of
Mesopotamia died in the
land of the
Gospel.
20. But I wonder why he set4361
Judah and Tamar before us for an
example, unless perchance even
harlots give him
pleasure; or
4362
Onan who was slain because he grudged
his
brother seed. Does he
imagine that we approve of any sexual
intercourse except for the procreation of
children? As regards
Moses,
it is clear that he would have been in
peril at the
inn, if
4363
Sephora which is by interpretation
a bird, had not circumcised her son, and
cut off the foreskin of
marriage with the knife which prefigured the
Gospel. This is that
Moses
who when he saw a great vision and heard an
angel, or the
Lord speaking
in the
bush,
4364
could not by any means approach
to him without first loosing the latchet of his shoe, that is, putting
off the
bonds of
marriage. And we need not be surprised at this in the
case of one who was a
prophet,
lawgiver, and the
friend of
God, seeing
that all the people when about to draw nigh to Mount
Sinai, and to hear
the voice speaking to them, were commanded to
sanctify themselves in
three days, and keep themselves from their
wives. I am out of order in
violating historical sequence, but I may point out that the same thing
was said by
4365
Ahimelech the
priest to
David
when he fled to Nob: “If only the young men have kept themselves
from
women.” And
David answered, “of a
truth about these
three days.” For the shew-
bread, like the body of
Christ, might
not be eaten by those who rose from the
marriage bed. And in passing we
ought to consider the words “if only the young men have kept
themselves from
women.” The
truth is that, in view of the
purity
of the body of
Christ, all sexual intercourse is
unclean. In the
law
also it is enjoined that the
4366
high
priest
must not marry any but a
virgin, nor must he take to
wife a
widow. If a
virgin and a
widow are on the same level, how is it that one is taken,
the other
rejected?
4367
And the
widow of a
priest is bidden
abide in the
house of her
father, and not
to contract a second
marriage.
4368
If the
sister of a
priest dies in
virginity, just as the
priest is commanded
to go to the funeral of his
father and mother, so must he go to hers.
But if she be
married, she is
despised as though she belonged not to
him. He who has
4369
| 4369 Deut. xx. 6, 7, where an indulgence, not a prohibition,
is clearly indicated. |
married a
wife, and he who has
planted a
vineyard, an image of the propagation of
children, is forbidden to go to the
battle. For he who is the
slave of
his
wife cannot be the
Lord’s
soldier. And the laver in the
tabernacle was cast from the mirrors of the
women who
4370
| 4370 Ex. xxxviii. 8. Sept. Vulg. “who watched;”
Onkelos’ Targum “who assembled to pray,” and so the
Syriac Version. The Hebrew word signifies “to go forth to
war,” but is applied to the temple service, a sort of militia
sacra (Gesenius). Hence Rev. Version, “the serving women which
served at the door of the tent of meeting;” and Margin,
“the women which assembled to minister.” Comp. Bible:Num.4.39 Bible:1Sam.2.22">Numb. iv. 3, 23, 30, 35, 39; and 1 Sam. ii.
22. |
fasted, signifying the bodies of pure
virgins: And within,
4371
in the
sanctuary, both
cherubim, and
mercy-seat, and the
ark of the
covenant,
and the
table of shew-
bread, and the
candle-stick, and the
censer, were
made of the purest
gold. For
silver might not be brought into the holy
of holies.
21. I must not linger over Moses when my purpose is at
full speed to lightly touch on each topic and to sketch the outline of
a proper knowledge of my subject. I will pass to Joshua the son of Nun,
who was previously called Ause, or better, as in the Hebrew,
Osee, that is, Saviour. For he,4372
| 4372 In Jude 5, instead of “the Lord,” A.
B. read Jesus, and this is accepted by many ancient,
authorities. Farrar observes (“Early Days of Christianity,”
pop. ed., p, 128) “Jesus” is the more difficult, and
therefore more probable reading of A. B. It is explained by 1 Cor. x. 4, and the identification of the Messiah
with the “Angel of the Lord” (Ex. xiv. 19; xxiii. 20, &c.) and with the Pillar of Fire in
Philo. |
according to the
epistle of Jude,
saved the people of
Israel and led them forth out of Egypt, and brought
them into the
land of
promise. As soon as this Joshua
4373
reached the
Jordan, the waters of
marriage, which had ever flowed in the
land, dried up and stood in one
heap; and the whole people, barefooted and on dry ground, crossed over,
and came to
Gilgal, and there was a second time circumcised. If we take
this literally, it cannot possibly stand. For if we had two foreskins,
or if another could grow after the first was
cut off, there would be
room for speaking of a second
circumcision. But the meaning is that
Joshua circumcised the people who had crossed the
desert, with the
Gospel knife, and he circumcised them with a
stone knife, that what in the case of
Moses’
son was prefigured in a few might under Joshua be fulfilled in all.
Moreover, the very foreskins were heaped together and buried, and
covered with
earth, and the fact that the
reproach of Egypt was taken
away, and the name of the place,
Gilgal, which is by
interpretation
4374
| 4374 Jerome derives
Gilgal from הָלנָּ to uncover: the
accepted derivation is from ללָנָּ to roll. |
revelation, show that while
the people wandered in the
desert uncircumcised their
eyes were
blinded. Let us see what follows. After this
Gospel circumcision and
the
consecration of twelve
stones at the place of revelation, the
Passover was immediately celebrated, a
lamb was slain for them, and
they ate the
food of the Holy
Land. Joshua went forth, and was met by
the
Prince of the
host,
sword in
hand, that is either to shew that he
was ready to
fight for the circumcised people, or to sever the tie of
marriage. And in the same way that
Moses was commanded, so was he:
4375
“loose thy shoe, for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground.” For if the armed
host of
the
Lord was represented by the
trumpets of the
priests, we may see in
Jericho a type of the
overthrow of the
world by the
preaching of the
Gospel. And to pass over
endless details (for it is not my purpose now
to unfold all the
mysteries of the Old Testament),
4376
five kings who previously
reigned in
the
land of
promise, and opposed the
Gospel army, were overcome in
battle with Joshua. I think it is clearly to be understood that before
the
Lord led his people from Egypt and circumcised them, sight, smell,
taste, hearing, and touch had the
dominion, and that to these, as to
five
princes, everything was subject. And when they
4377
took
refuge in the
cave of the body
and in a place of
darkness,
Jesus entered the body itself and slew
them, that the source of their
power might be the
instrument of their
death.
22. But it is now time for us to raise the standard of
Joshua’s chastity. It is written that Moses had a wife. Now Moses
is interpreted both by our Lord and by the Apostle to mean the law:4378
“They have
Moses and the
prophets.” And
4379
“
Death reigned from
Adam until
Moses, even over them that had not
sinned after the likeness of
Adam’s
transgression.” And no
one doubts that in both passages
Moses signifies the
law. We read that
Moses, that is the
law, had a
wife: shew me then in the same way that
Joshua the son of Nun had either
wife or
children, and if you can do
so, I will confess that I am beaten. He certainly received the fairest
spot in the
division of the
land of
Judah, and
died, not in the
twenties, which are ever unlucky in Scripture—by them are
reckoned the years of
4380
Jacob’s
service,
4381
the
price of
Joseph, and
4382
sundry presents which
Esau who was
fond of them received—but in the
4383
tens, whose
praises we have
often
sung; and he was buried in
4384
| 4384 Timnath-Serah
was the original name of Joshua’s inheritance (Josh. xix. 50), but in Judges ii. 9, we find the name changed to
Timnath-Heres. Timnath-Serah and the tomb of its illustrious owner were
shown in the time of Jerome (Letter cviii. 13). “Paula wondered
greatly that he who assigned men their possessions had chosen for
himself a rough and rocky spot.” Jerome is looking at the
inheritance with the eyes of an ardent controversialist when he
describes it as “the fairest spot in the land of
Judah.” |
Thamnath Sare, that is,
most perfect sovereignty, or among those
of a new
covering, to signify the
crowds of
virgins, covered by the
Saviour’s aid on Mount
Ephraim, that is, the
fruitful
mountain; on the north of the
Mountain of Gaash, which is, being
interpreted,
disturbance: for
4385
| 4385 Ps. xlviii. 2. The correct rendering of the Hebrew is
much disputed. |
“Mount
Sion is on the sides of
the north, the city of the Great King,” is ever exposed to
hatred, and in every
trial says
4386
“But my
feet had well nigh slipped.” The book which bears
the name of Joshua ends with his
burial. Again in the book of Judges we
read of him as though he had risen and come to
life again, and by way
of summary his works are extolled. We read too
4387
“So Joshua sent the people
away, every man unto his inheritance, that they might possess the
land.” And “
Israel served the
Lord all the days of
Joshua,” and so on. There immediately follows: “And Joshua
the son of Nun, the
servant of the
Lord,
died, being an
hundred and ten
years old.”
Moses, moreover, only saw the
land of
promise; he
could not enter: and
4388
“he
died in the
land of
Moab, and the
Lord buried him in the
valley in the
land of
Moab over against
Beth-peor: but no man knoweth
of his
sepulchre unto this day.” Let us compare the
burial of the
two:
Moses died in the
land of
Moab, Joshua in the
land of Judæa.
The former was buried in a
valley over against the
house of Phogor,
which is, being
interpreted,
reproach (for the Hebrew Phogor
corresponds to Priapus
4389
| 4389 Worshipped
more especially at Lampsacus on the Hellespont. He was regarded as the
promoter of fertility in vegetables and animals. |
); the
latter in Mount
Ephraim on the north of Mount Gaash. And in the simple
expressions of the
sacred Scriptures there is always a more subtle
meaning. The
Jews gloried in
children and
child-bearing; and the
barren
woman, who had not
offspring in
Israel, was accursed; but
blessed was
he whose
seed was in
Sion, and his
family in
Jerusalem; and part of the
highest
blessing was,
4390
“Thy
wife shall be as a
fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of thy
house, thy
children like olive
plants, round about thy
table.” Therefore his
grave is described as placed in a
valley over against the
house of an
idol which was in a special sense
consecrated to
lust. But we who
fight
under Joshua our
leader, even to the present day know not where
Moses
was buried. For we
despise Phogor, and all his
shame, knowing that they
who are in the
flesh cannot please
God. And the
Lord before the
flood
had said
4391
“My spirit shall not
abide
in man for ever, for that he also is
flesh.” Wherefore, when
Moses died, the people of
Israel mourned for him; but Joshua like one
on his way to
victory was unmourned. For
marriage ends at
death;
virginity thereafter begins to wear the
crown.
23. Next he brings forward Samson, and does not consider
that the Lord’s Nazarite was once shaven bald by a woman. And
although Samson continues to be a type of the Saviour because he loved
a harlot from among the Gentiles, which harlot corresponds to the
Church, and because he slew more enemies in his death than he did in
his life, yet he does not set an example of conjugal chastity. And he
surely reminds us4392
of
Jacob’s
prophecy—he was shaken by his runaway steed, bitten
by an adder and fell backwards. But why he enumerated
Deborah, and
Barak, and the
wife of
Heber the Kenite, I am at a loss to understand.
For it is one thing to draw up a list of military commanders in
historical sequence, another to indicate certain figures of
marriage
which cannot be found in them. And whereas he prefers the
fidelity of
the
father Jephthah to the
tears of the
virgin daughter, that makes for
us. For we are not commending
virgins of the
world so much as those who
are
virgins for
Christ’s sake, and most Hebrews
blame the
father
for the rash
vow he made,
4393
“If
thou wilt indeed
deliver the
children of Ammon into mine
hand, then it
shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the
doors of my
house to meet
me, when I return in
peace from the
children of Ammon, it shall be for
the
Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a
burnt offering.”
Supposing (they say) a
dog or an ass had met him, what would he have
done? Their meaning is that
God so ordered events that he who had
improvidently made a
vow, should
learn his error by the
death of his
daughter. And if Samuel who was brought up in the
tabernacle married a
wife, how does that prejudice
virginity? As if at the present day also
there were not many
married priests, and as though the
Apostle did
not
4394
describe a
bishop as the
husband of
one
wife, having
children with all
purity. At the same time we must not
forget that Samuel was a Levite, not a
priest or high-
priest. Hence it
was that his mother made for him a linen ephod, that is, a linen
garment to go over the shoulders, which was the proper
dress of the
Levites and of the inferior order. And so he is not named in the Psalms
among the
priests, but among those who call upon the name of the
Lord:
4395
“
Moses and
Aaron among his
priests, and Samuel among those who call upon his name.” For
4396
Levi begat Kohath, Kohath
begat
Amminadab, Amminadab
begat Korah, Korah
begat Assir, Assir
begat
Elkanah, Elkanah
begat Zuph, Zuph
begat Tahath, Tahath
begat Eliel,
Eliel
begat Jeroham, Jeroham
begat Elkanah, Elkanah
begat Samuel. And
no one doubts that the
priests sprang from the stock of
Aaron,
Eleazar,
and Phinees. And seeing that they had
wives, they would be rightly
brought against us, if, led away by the error of the Encratites, we
were to maintain that
marriage deserved censure, and our high
priest
were not after the order of
Melchizedek, without
father, without
mother,
4397
| 4397 Heb. vii. 3. The Greek word in the text
(“without genealogy”) is unknown to secular writers, and
occurs here only in the New Test. It cannot mean without descent
(see verse 6). Unmarried appears to be a false inference from
this supposed meaning. Ignatius also (Ep. ad. Philad.) reckoned
Melchizedek among celibates. Rev. Version translates, “without
genealogy,” i.e., his ancestry was unrecorded. See
Farrar’s “Early Days of Christianity,” pop. ed., p.
221. |
Α᾽γενεαλόγητος
, that is,
unmarried. And much fruit truly did Samuel
reap from his
children! he himself pleased
God, but
4398
begat such
children as displeased
the
Lord. But if in support of second
marriage, he urges the instance
of
Boaz and Ruth, let him know that in the
Gospel (S.
Matt. i. 6) to typify the
Church even
Rahab the
harlot is reckoned among our
Lord’s ancestors.
24. He boasts that David bought his wife for two hundred
foreskins. But he should remember that David had numerous other wives,
and afterwards received Michal, Saul’s daughter, whom her father
had delivered to another, and when he was old got heat from the embrace
of the Shunammite maiden. And I do not say this because I am bold
enough to disparage holy men, but because it is one thing to live under
the law, another to live under the Gospel. David slew Uriah the Hittite
and committed adultery with Bathsheba. And because he was a man of
blood—the reference is not, as some think, to his wars, but to
the4399
murder—he was not permitted to
build a
temple of the
Lord. But as for us,
4400
if we cause one of the least to
stumble, and if we say to a
brother4401
Raca, or
4402
use our
eyes improperly, it were good
that a
millstone were hanged about
our
neck, we shall be in
danger of Gehenna, and a mere glance will be
reckoned to us for
adultery. He passes on to
Solomon, through whom
wisdom itself
sang its own
praises. Seeing that not content with
dwelling upon his
praises, he calls him uxorious, I am surprised that
he did not add the words of the Canticles:
4403
“There are threescore
queens, and
fourscore
concubines, and maidens without number,” and those of
the First Book of Kings;
4404
And he had
seven
hundred wives, princesses, and three
hundred concubines, and
others without number.” These are they who turned away his
heart
from the
Lord: and yet before he had many
wives, and fell into
sins of
the
flesh, at the beginning of his
reign and in his early years he
built a
temple to the
Lord. For every one is judged not for what he
will be, but for what he is. But if Jovinianus approves the example of
Solomon, he will no longer be in favour of second and third marriages
only, but unless he has seven
hundred wives and three
hundred
concubines, he cannot be the king’s antitype or attain to his
merit. I earnestly again and again remind you, my reader, that I am
compelled to speak as I do, and that I do not disparage our
predecessors under the
law, but am well aware that they served their
generation according to their circumstances, and fulfilled the
Lord’s command to increase, and multiply, and replenish the
earth. And what is more they were figures of those that were to come.
But we to whom it is said,
4405
“The time
is shortened, that henceforth those that have
wives may be as though
they had none,” have a different command, and for us
virginity is
consecrated by the
Virgin Saviour.
25. What folly it was to include Elijah and Elisha in a
list of married men, is plain without a word from me. For, since John
Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah, and John was a virgin,
it is clear that he came not only in Elijah’s spirit, but also in
his bodily chastity. Then the passage relating to Hezekiah might be
adduced (though Jovinianus with his wonted stupidity did not notice
it), in which after his recovery and the addition of fifteen years to
his life he said, “Now will I beget children.” It must be
remembered, however, that in the Hebrew texts the passage is not so,
but runs thus:4406
“The
father to the
children shall make known thy
faithfulness.” Nor
need we wonder that Huldah, the
prophetess, and
wife of Shallum, was
4407
consulted by
Josiah, King of
Judah,
when the
captivity was approaching and the
wrath of the
Lord was
falling upon
Jerusalem: since it is the rule of Scripture when holy men
fail, to
praise women to the
reproach of men. And it is superfluous to
speak of Daniel, for the Hebrews to the present day
affirm that the
three
youths were
eunuchs, in accordance with the declaration of
God
which Isaiah utters to
Hezekiah:
4408
“And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt
beget, shall they take away: and they shall be
eunuchs in the
palace of
the King of
Babylon.” And again in Daniel we read:
4409
“And the king spake unto Ashpenaz
the master of his
eunuchs, that he should bring in certain of the
children of
Israel, even of the
seed royal and of the nobles:
youth in
whom was no
blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all
wisdom, and
cunning in
knowledge, and understanding
science.” The conclusion
is that if Daniel and the three
youths were chosen from the
seed royal,
and if Scripture foretold that that there should be
eunuchs of the
seed
royal, these men were those who were made
eunuchs. If he meets us with
the argument that in Ezekiel
4410
it is said that
Noah, Daniel and Job in a
sinful land could not free their sons and
daughters, we reply that the words are used hypothetically.
Noah and
Job were not in existence at that time: we know that they lived many
ages before. And the meaning is this: if there were such and such men
in a
sinful land, they shall not be able to
save their own sons and
daughters: because the
righteousness of the
father shall not
save the
son, nor shall the
sin of one be imputed to another.
4411
“For the
soul that sinneth, it
shall
die.” This, too, must be said, that Daniel, as the history
of his book shows, was taken captive with King Jehoiakim at the same
time that Ezekiel was also led into
captivity. How then could he have
sons who was still a
youth? And only three years had elapsed when he
was brought in to wait upon the king. Let no one suppose that Ezekiel
at this time remembers Daniel as a man, not as a
youth; for “It
came to pass,” he says,
4412
“in the
sixth year,” that is of King Jehoiakim, “in the sixth
month, in the fifth day of the month:” and, “as I sat in my
house, and the
elders of
Judah sat before me.” Yet on that same
day it was said to him,
4413
“Though
these three men,
Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it.” Daniel was
therefore a
youth, and known to the people, either on account of his
interpretation of the king’s
dreams,
4414
| 4414 Apocryphal
additions to Daniel. |
or on account of the
release of
Susannah, and the slaying of the
elders. And it is clearly
proved that
at the time these things were
spoken of
Noah, Daniel, and Job, Daniel was still a
youth and could not
have had sons and
daughters, whom he might
save by his
righteousness.
So
far concerning the
Law.
26. Coming to the Gospel he sets before us Zacharias and
Elizabeth, Peter and his mother-in-law, and, with a shamelessness to
which we have now grown accustomed, fails to understand that they, too,
ought to have been reckoned among those who served the Law. For the
Gospel had no being before the crucifixion of Christ—it was
consecrated by His passion and by His blood. In accordance with this
rule Peter and the other Apostles (I must give Jovinianus something now
and then out of my abundance) had indeed wives, but those which they
had taken before they knew the Gospel. But once they were received into
the Apostolate, they forsook the offices of marriage. For when Peter,
representing the Apostles, says to the Lord:4415
“Lo we have left all and followed
thee,” the
Lord answered him,
4416
“Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left
house or
wife, or
brethren, or
parents, or
children for the
kingdom of
God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this time, and
in the
world to come
eternal life.” But if, in order to show that
all the
Apostles had
wives, he meets us with the words
4417
| 4417 1 Cor. ix. 5. The text has been much tampered with by
the advocates or opponents of celibacy. The reading first quoted by
Jerome is that of F, a manuscript of the eighth or ninth century, and
is found in Tertullian; the other chief readings introduce the Greek
equivalent for sister, either in the sing. or plural. The Rev.
Version renders, “have we no right to lead about a wife
that is a believer” (or sister). Augustine, Tertullian,
Theodoret, &c., together with Cornelius-a-Lapide and Estius among
the moderns, agree with Jerome in referring the passage to holy women
who ministered to the Apostles as they did to the Lord Himself. The
third canon of Nicæa is supposed to be directed against the
practice encouraged by this interpretation of the Apostle’s
words. |
“Have we no right to lead about
women or
wives” (for
γυνή in
Greek has both meanings)
“even as the
rest of the
apostles, and
Cephas, and the
brethren
of the
Lord?” let him add what is found in the
Greek copies,
“Have we no right to lead about
women that are sisters, or
wives?” This makes it clear that the writer referred to other
holy
women, who, in accordance with
Jewish custom,
ministered to their
teachers of their substance, as we read was the
practice with even our
Lord himself. Where there is a previous reference to eating and
drinking, and the outlay of
money, and mention is afterwards made of
women that are sisters, it is quite clear, as we have said, that we
must understand, not
wives, but those
women who
ministered of their
substance. And we read the same account in the Old Testament of the
Shunammite who was wont to welcome
Elisha, and to put for him a
table,
and
bread, and a candlestick, and the
rest. At all events if we take
γυναίκας to mean
wives, not
women, the addition of the word
sisters
destroys the effect of the word
wives, and shews that they were
related in spirit, not by wedlock. Nevertheless, with the exception of
the
Apostle Peter, it is not openly stated that the
Apostles had
wives;
and since the statement is made of one while nothing is said about the
rest, we must understand that those of whom Scripture gives no such
description had no
wives. Yet Jovinianus, who has arrayed against us
Zacharias and Elizabeth, Peter and his
wife’s mother, should
know, that John was the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, that is, a
virgin was the
offspring of
marriage, the
Gospel of the
law, chastity
of matrimony; so that by a
virgin prophet the
virgin Lord might be both
announced and
baptized. But we might say concerning Peter, that he had
a mother-in-
law when he believed, and no longer had a
wife, although in
the
4418
| 4418 Attributed to
Clement by Jerome. |
“Sentences” we read of
both his
wife and
daughter. But for the present our argument must be
based wholly on Scripture. He has made his appeal to the
Apostles,
because he thinks that they, who hold the
chief authority in our
moral
system and are the typical
Christian teachers, were not
virgins. If,
then, we allow that they were not
virgins (and, with the exception of
Peter, the point cannot be
proved), yet I must tell him that it is to
the
Apostles that the words of Isaiah relate:
4419
“Except the
Lord of
hosts had
left unto us a
small remnant, we should have been as
Sodom, we should
have been like unto
Gomorrah.” So, then, they who were by
birth
Jews could not under the
Gospel recover the
virginity which they had
lost in Judaism. And yet John, one of the
disciples, who is related to
have been the youngest of the
Apostles, and who was a
virgin when he
embraced Christianity, remained a
virgin, and on that account was more
beloved by our
Lord, and lay upon the
breast of
Jesus. And what Peter,
who had had a
wife, did not
dare ask,
4420
he requested John to ask. And after the
resurrection, when
Mary Magdalene told them that the
Lord had risen,
4421
they both
ran to the
sepulchre, but
John outran Peter. And when they were
fishing in the
ship on the
lake
of Gennesaret,
Jesus stood upon the
shore, and the
Apostles knew not
who it was they saw;
4422
the
virgin
alone recognized a
virgin, and said to Peter, “It is the
Lord.” Again, after hearing the prediction that he must be bound
by another, and led whither he would not, and must
suffer on the
cross,
Peter said, “
Lord what shall this man do?” being
unwilling
to
desert John, with whom he had always been united. Our
Lord said to him, “What is
that to thee if I wish him so to be?” Whence the saying went
abroad among the
brethren that that
disciple should not
die. Here we
have a
proof that
virginity does not
die, and that the defilement of
marriage is not
washed away by the
blood of martyrdom, but
virginity
abides with
Christ, and its
sleep is not
death but a passing to another
state. If, however, Jovinianus should obstinately
contend that John was
not a
virgin, (whereas we have maintained that his
virginity was the
cause of the special
love our
Lord bore to him), let him explain, if he
was not a
virgin, why it was that he was
loved more than the other
Apostles. But you say,
4423
the
Church
was founded upon Peter: although
4424
elsewhere
the same is attributed to all the
Apostles, and they all receive the
keys of the
kingdom of
heaven, and the
strength of the
Church depends
upon them all alike, yet one among the twelve is chosen so that when a
head has been
appointed, there may be no occasion for
schism. But why
was not John chosen, who was a
virgin? Deference was paid to age,
because Peter was the
elder: one who was a
youth, I may say almost a
boy, could not be set over men of advanced age; and a good master who
was bound to remove every occasion of
strife among his
disciples, and
who had said to them,
4425
“
Peace I
leave with you, my
peace I give unto you,” and,
4426
“He that is the greater among
you, let him be the least of all,” would not be thought to afford
cause of
envy against the
youth whom he had
loved. We maybe sure that
John was then a
boy because ecclesiastical history most clearly
proves
that he lived to the
reign of Trajan, that is, he fell
asleep in the
sixty-eighth year after our
Lord’s passion, as I have briefly
noted in my
treatise on
Illustrious Men.
4427
| 4427 See this book
in Vol. III. of this series. |
Peter is an
Apostle, and John is an
Apostle—the one a
married man, the other a
virgin; but Peter is
an
Apostle only, John is both an
Apostle and an
Evangelist, and a
prophet. An
Apostle, because he wrote to the
Churches as a master; an
Evangelist, because he composed a
Gospel, a thing which no other of the
Apostles, excepting Matthew, did; a
prophet, for he saw in the
island
of
Patmos, to which he had been banished by the
Emperor Domitian as a
martyr for the
Lord, an
Apocalypse containing the boundless
mysteries
of the future. Tertullian, more over, relates that he was sent to
Rome,
and that having been plunged into a jar of boiling
oil he came out
fresher and more active than when he went in. But his very
Gospel is
widely different from the
rest. Matthew as though he were writing of a
man begins thus: “The book of the Generation of
Jesus Christ, the
son of
David, the son of
Abraham;” Luke begins with the
priesthood of Zacharias; Mark with a
prophecy of the
prophets Malachi
and Isaiah. The first has the face of a man, on account of the
genealogical
table; the second, the face of a
calf, on account of the
priesthood; the third, the face of a
lion, on account of the voice of
one crying in the
desert,
4428
“Prepare ye the way of the
Lord, make His paths straight.” But John like an
eagle soars
aloft, and reaches the
Father Himself, and says,
4429
“In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with
God, and the Word was
God. The same was in the
beginning with
God,” and so on. The
virgin writer
expounded
mysteries which the
married could not, and to briefly sum up all and
show how great was the privilege of John, or rather of
virginity in
John, the
Virgin Mother
4430
was entrusted
by the
Virgin Lord to the
Virgin disciple.
27. But we toil to no purpose. For our opponent urges
against us the Apostolic sentence and says,4431
“
Adam was first formed, then
Eve; and
Adam was not
beguiled, but the
woman being
beguiled hath
fallen into
transgression: but she shall be
saved through the
child-bearing, if they continue in
faith and
love and
sanctification
with sobriety.” Let us consider what led the
Apostle to make this
declaration:
4432
“I
desire therefore that the men
pray in every place, lifting up holy
hands, without
wrath and disputing.” So in due course he lays
down rules of
life for the
women and says “In like manner that
women adorn themselves in
modest apparel, with shamefacedness and
sobriety; not with
braided hair, and
gold or
pearls or costly
raiment;
but (which becometh
women professing
godliness) through good works. Let
a
woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a
woman to
teach, nor to have
dominion over a man, but to be in
quietness.” And that the lot of a
woman might not seem a hard
one, reducing her to the condition of a
slave to her
husband, the
Apostle recalls the ancient
law and goes back to the first example:
that
Adam was first made, then the
woman out of his rib; and that the
Devil could not
seduce Adam, but did
seduce Eve; and that after
displeasing
God she was immediately subjected to the man, and began to
turn to her
husband; and he points out that she who was once tied with
the
bonds of
marriage and was reduced to the condition of
Eve, might
blot out the
4433
old
transgression by the
4434
| 4434 The original
admits of the rendering “by means of her child-bearing.”
But Ellicott and others interpret of the Incarnation. |
procreation
of
children:
provided, however, that she bring up the
children
themselves in the
faith and
love of
Christ, and in
sanctification and
chastity; for we must not
adopt the faulty reading of the
Latin texts,
sobrietas, but
castitas, that is,
4435
| 4435 Rev. Version,
“sobriety.” Sobermindedness or discretion are
given by Ellicott (Notes on translation) as alternative renderings. The
word cannot mean chastity, but rather “the well-balanced state of
mind resulting from habitual self-restraint” in general. |
σωφροσύνη .
You see how you are mastered by the witness of this passage also, and
cannot but be driven to admit that what you thought was on the side of
marriage tells in favour of
virginity. For if the
woman is
saved in
child-bearing, and the more the
children the greater the
safety of the
mothers, why did he add “if they continue in
faith and
love and
sanctification with chastity”? The
woman will then be
saved, if
she bear not
children who will remain
virgins: if what she has herself
lost, she attains in her
children, and makes up for the loss and
decay,
of the root by the excellence of the
flower and fruit.
28. Above, in passing, when our opponent adduced
Solomon, who, although he had many wives, nevertheless built the
temple, I briefly replied that it was my intention to run over the
remaining points. Now that he may not cry out that both Solomon and
others under the law, prophets and holy men, have been dishonoured by
us, let us show what this very man with his many wives and concubines
thought of marriage. For no one can know better than he who suffered
through them, what a wife or woman is. Well then, he says in the
Proverbs:4436
“The foolish and
bold
woman comes to want
bread.” What
bread? Surely that
bread which
cometh down from
heaven: and he immediately adds
4437
“The
earth-
born perish in her
house,
rush into the
depths of
hell.” Who are the
earth-
born that
perish in her
house? They of course who follow the first
Adam, who is
of the
earth, and not the second, who is from
heaven. And again in
another place: “Like a
worm in
wood, so a
wicked woman destroyeth
her
husband.” But if you assert that this was spoken of bad
wives, I shall briefly answer: What necessity rests upon me to
run the
risk of the
wife I marry proving good or bad?
4438
“It is better,” he says,
“to dwell in a
desert land, than with a contentious and
passionate
woman in a wide
house.” How seldom we find a
wife
without these faults, he knows who is
married. Hence that sublime
orator, Varius Geminus
4439
| 4439 Often mentioned
by Seneca. A saying is reported of him: “Ho, traveller, stop.
There is a miracle here: a man and his wife not at strife.” |
says well
“The man who does not quarrel is a bachelor.”
4440
“It is better to dwell in the
corner of the
housetop, than with a contentious
woman in a
house in
common.” If a
house common to
husband and
wife makes a
wife proud
and breeds contempt for the
husband: how much more if the
wife be the
richer of the two, and the
husband but a lodger in her
house! She
begins to be not a
wife, but mistress of the
house; and if she offend
her
husband, they must part.
4441
“A
continual dropping on a wintry day” turns a man out of
doors, and
so will a contentious
woman drive a man from his own
house. She
floods
his
house with her constant nagging and
daily chatter, and ousts him
from his own
home, that is the
Church. Hence the same
Solomon
previously commands:
4442
| 4442 Supereffluas.
Prov. iii. 21 Sept.; Heb. ii. 1. The Greek word signifies to fall away
like flowing water. See Schleusner on παραρρύομαι
. In Heb. ii. 1, Rev. V. translates “We drift
away:” Vaughan, “We be found to have leaked, or ebbed
away.” |
“My son
flows forth beyond.” And the
Apostle, writing to the Hebrews,
says “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the
things spoken, lest haply we flow forth beyond.” But who can
hide
from himself what is thus enigmatically expressed?
4443
“The horseleech had three
daughters, dearly
loved, but they satisfied her not, and a fourth is
not satisfied when you say Enough; the
grave, and
woman’s
love,
and the
earth that is not satisfied with
water, and the
fire that saith
not, Enough.” The
horse-leech is the
devil, the
daughters of the
devil are dearly
loved, and they cannot be satisfied with the
blood of
the slain:
the grave, and woman’s love, and the earth dry and
scorched with heat. It is not the
harlot, or the adulteress who is
spoken of; but
woman’s
love in general is
accused of ever being
insatiable; put it out, it
bursts into
flame; give it plenty, it is
again in need; it enervates a man’s
mind, and engrosses all
thought except for the passion which it
feeds. What we read in the
parable which follows is to the same effect: “For three things
the
earth doth tremble, and for four which it cannot bear: for a
servant when he is king: and a
fool when he is filled with
meat: for an
odious
woman when she is
married to a good
husband: and an
handmaid
that is heir to her mistress.” See how a
wife is classed with the
greatest evils. But if you reply that it is an
odious wife, I
will give you the same answer as before—the mere possibility of
such
danger is in itself no
light matter. For he who marries a
wife is
uncertain whether he is marrying an odious
woman or one worthy of his
love. If she be odious, she is intolerable. If worthy of
love, her
love
is compared to the
grave, to the
parched
earth, and to
fire.
29. Let us come to Ecclesiastes and adduce a few
corroborative passages from him also.4444
“To everything there is a
season,
and a time to every purpose under the
heaven: a time to be
born, and a
time to
die: a time to
plant, and a time to pluck up that which is
planted.” We brought forth young under the
law with
Moses, let us
die under the
Gospel with
Christ. We
planted in
marriage, let us by
chastity pluck up that which was
planted. “A time to embrace, and
a time to refrain from embracing: a time to
love, and a time to
hate: a
time for
war, and a time for
peace.” And at the same time he
warns us not to prefer the
law to the
Gospel; nor to think that
virgin
purity is to be placed on a level with
marriage:
4445
“Better,” he says, “is
the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” And he
immediately adds: “Say not thou, what is the cause that the
former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely
concerning this.” And he gives the reason why the latter days are
better than the former:
4446
| 4446 R.V. “Good
as an inheritance.” |
“For
wisdom with an inheritance is good.” Under the
law carnal wisdom
was followed by the
sword of
death; under the
Gospel an
eternal
inheritance awaits
spiritual wisdom. “Behold, this have I found,
4447
saith the
Preacher, one man among a
thousand have I found; but a
woman among all those have I not found.
Behold this only have I found, that
God made man upright; but they have
sought out many inventions.” He says that he had found man
upright. Consider the force of the words. The word
man
comprehends both male and
female. “But a
woman,” he says,
“among all these have I not found.” Let us read the
beginning of Genesis, and we shall find
Adam, that is
man,
called both male and
female. Having then been
created by
God good and
upright, by our own fault we have fallen to a worse condition; and that
which in
Paradise had been upright, when we left
Paradise was
corrupt.
If you object that before they
sinned there was a distinction in sex
between male and
female, and that they could without
sin have come
together, it is uncertain what might have happened. For we cannot know
the
judgements of
God, and anticipate his sentence as we choose. What
really happened is plain enough,—that they who in
Paradise
remained in perpetual
virginity, when they were expelled from
Paradise
were joined together. Or if
Paradise admits of
marriage, and there is
no difference between
marriage and
virginity, what prevented their
previous intercourse even in
Paradise? They are driven out of
Paradise;
and what they did not there, they do on
earth; so that from the very
earliest days of
humanity virginity was
consecrated by
Paradise, and
marriage by
earth.
4448
“Let
thy
garments be always white.” The
eternal whiteness of our
garments is the
purity of
virginity. In the morning we sowed our
seed,
and in the evening let us not cease. Let us who served
marriage under
the
law, serve
virginity under the
Gospel.
30. I pass to the Song of Songs, and whereas our
opponent thinks it makes altogether for marriage, I shall show that it
contains the mysteries of virginity. Let us hear what the bride says
before that the bridegroom comes to earth, suffers, descends to the
lower world, and rises again.4449
“We will
make for thee likenesses of
gold with ornaments of
silver while the
king sits at his
table.” Before the
Lord rose again, and the
Gospel shone, the
bride had not
gold, but likenesses of
gold. As for
the
silver, however, which she professes to have at the
marriage, she
not only had
silver ornaments, but she had them in variety—in
widows, in the continent, and in the
married. Then the bridegroom makes
answer to the
bride, and
teaches her that the
shadow of the old
law has
passed away, and the
truth of the
Gospel has come.
4450
“Rise up, my
love, my fair one, and
come away, for lo, the
winter is past, the rain is over and
gone.” This relates to the Old Testament. Once more he speaks of
the
Gospel and of
virginity: “The
flowers appear on the
earth,
the time of the pruning of
vines has come.” Does he not seem to
you to say the very same thing that the
Apostle says:
4451
“The time is shortened that
henceforth both those that have
wives may be as though they had
none”? And more plainly does he herald chastity:
4452
“The voice,” he says,
“of the turtle is heard in our
land.” The turtle, the
chastest of
birds, always dwelling in lofty places, is a type of the
Saviour. Let us read the works of naturalists and we shall find that it
is the
nature of the turtle-
dove, if it lose its mate, not to take
another; and we shall understand that second
marriage is repudiated
even by
dumb birds. And immediately the turtle says to its fellow:
4453
“The
fig tree hath put forth its
green
figs,” that is, the
commandments of the old
law have
fallen, and the blossoming
vines of the
Gospel give forth their
fragrance. Whence the
Apostle also
says,
4454
“We are a sweet savour of
Christ.”
4455
“Arise, my
love, my fair one, and come away. O my
dove, thou art in the clefts of
the
rock, in the covert of the
steep place. Let me see thy
countenance,
let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy
countenance is
comely.”
4456
| 4456 Ex. xxxiv. 33, 35; 2 Cor. iii. 7 sq. |
Whilst thou
coveredst thy
countenance like
Moses and the
veil of the
law remained,
I neither saw thy face, nor did I
condescend to hear thy voice. I said,
4457
“Yea, when ye make many prayers,
I will not hear.” But now with unveiled face behold my
glory, and
shelter thyself in the cleft and
steep places of the solid
rock. On
hearing this the
bride disclosed the
mysteries of chastity:
4458
“My
beloved is mine, and I am
his: he feedeth his
flock among the
lilies,” that is among the
pure
virgin bands. Would you know what sort of a
throne our true
Solomon, the
Prince of
Peace, has, and what his attendants are like?
4459
“Behold,” he says, “it
is the litter of
Solomon: threescore mighty men are about it, of the
mighty men of
Israel. They all handle the
sword, and are
expert in
war:
every man hath his
sword upon his thigh.” They who are about
Solomon have their
sword upon their thigh, like Ehud, the left-handed
judge, who slew the fattest of foes, a man
devoted to the
flesh, and
cut short all his
pleasures.
4460
“I will
get me,” he says, “to the
mountain of
myrrh;” to
those, that is, who have mortified their bodies; “and to the
hill
of
frankincense,” to the
crowds of pure
virgins; “and I
will say to my
bride, thou art all fair, my
love, and there is no spot
in thee.” Whence too the
Apostle:
4461
“That he might present the
church
to himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such
thing.”
4462
“Come
with me from
Lebanon, my
bride, with me from
Lebanon. Thou shalt come
4463
| 4463 Sept. R.V.
“Look from the top of Amana.” |
and pass on from the beginning of
faith, from the top of Sanir and Hermon, from the
lions’
dens,
from the
mountains of the
leopards.”
Lebanon is, being
interpreted,
whiteness. Come then, fairest
bride, concerning
whom it is elsewhere said
4464
“Who is
she that cometh up, all in white?” and pass on by way of this
world, from the beginning of
faith, and from Sanir, which is by
interpretation,
God of light, as we read in the psalm:
4465
“Thy word is a
lantern unto my
feet, and
light unto my path;” and “from Hermon,”
that is,
consecration: and “
flee from the
lions’
dens, and the
mountains of the
leopards who cannot change their
spots.”
Flee, he says, from the
lions’
dens,
flee from the
pride of
devils, that when thou hast been
consecrated to me, I may be
able to say unto thee:
4466
“Thou
hast ravished my
heart, my sister, my
bride, thou hast ravished mine
heart with one of thine
eyes, with one
chain of thy
neck.” What
he says is something like this—I do not
reject marriage: you have
a second
eye, the left, which I have given to you on account of the
weakness of those who cannot see the right. But I am pleased with the
right
eye of
virginity, and if it be
blinded the whole body is in
darkness. And that we might not think he had in view
carnal love and
bodily
marriage, he at once excludes this meaning by saying
4467
“Thou hast ravished my
heart, my
bride, my sister.” The name sister excludes all suspicion of
unhallowed
love. “How fair are thy breasts with
wine,”
those breasts concerning which he had said above, My
beloved is mine,
and I am his: “betwixt my breasts shall he
lie,” that is in
the princely portion of the
heart where the Word of
God has its
lodging. What
wine is that which gives
beauty to the breasts of the
bride, and fills them with the
milk of chastity? That, forsooth, of
which the bridegroom goes on to speak:
4468
“I have drunk my
wine with my
milk. Eat, O
friends: yea, drink and be
drunken, my
brethren.”
Hence the
Apostles also were said to be filled with new
wine; with
new, he says, not with
old wine; because
4469
new
wine is put into
fresh wine-skins,
and they
4470
did not
walk in oldness of the
letter, but in
newness of the Spirit. This is
wine wherewith when
youths and maidens are intoxicated, they at once
thirst for
virginity;
they are filled with the spirit of chastity, and the
prophecy of
Zechariah comes to pass, at least if we follow the Hebrew literally,
for he prophesied concerning
virgins:
4471
“And the
streets of the city
shall be full of
boys and girls playing in the
streets thereof. For
what is his
goodness, and what is his
beauty, but the corn of the
elect, and
wine that giveth
birth to
virgins?” They are
virgins
of whom it is written in the forty-fifth psalm:
4472
“The
virgins her companions
that follow her shall be brought unto thee. With
gladness and rejoicing
shall they be led: they shall enter into the King’s
palace.”
31. Then follows:4473
“A
garden shut up is my sister, my
bride: a
garden shut up, a
fountain
sealed.” That which is shut up and sealed reminds us of the
mother of our
Lord who was a mother and a
Virgin. Hence it was that no
one before or after our Saviour was laid in his new
tomb, hewn in the
solid
rock. And yet she that was ever a
Virgin is the mother of many
virgins. For next we read: “Thy shoots are an orchard of
pomegranates with precious fruits.” By pomegranates and fruits is
signified the blending of all
virtues in
virginity.
4474
“My
beloved is white and
ruddy”; white in
virginity, ruddy in martyrdom. And because He is
white and ruddy, therefore it is immediately added
4475
“His mouth is most sweet, yea, he
is altogether
lovely.” The
virgin bridegroom having been
praised
by the
virgin bride, in turn
praises the
virgin bride, and says to her:
4476
“How
beautiful are thy
feet in
sandals,
4477
O
daughter of Aminadab,”
which is, being
interpreted,
a people that offereth itself
willingly. For
virginity is voluntary, and therefore the steps of
the
Church in the
beauty of chastity are
praised. This is not the time
for me like a commentator to explain all the
mysteries of
virginity
from the
Song of
Songs; I have no doubt that the fastidious reader will
turn up his nose at what has already been said.
32. Isaiah tells of the mystery of our faith and hope:4478
“Behold a
virgin shall
conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name
Emmanuel.” I
know that the
Jews are accustomed to meet us with the objection that in
Hebrew the word
Almah does not mean a
virgin, but
a young
woman. And, to speak
truth, a
virgin is properly called
Bethulah, but a young
woman, or a girl, is not
Almah, but
Naarah!4479
| 4479 Delitzsch
remarks, “The assertion of Jerome is untenable.” See
Cheyne, critical note on Is.
vii. 14. The word probably
denotes a female, married or unmarried, just attaining maturity. But in
every other passage, the context shows that the word is used of an
unmarried woman. |
What then is
the meaning of
Almah? A hidden
virgin, that is, not merely
virgin, but a
virgin and something more, because not every
virgin is
hidden, shut off from the occasional sight of men. Then again, Rebecca,
on account of her extreme
purity, and because she was a type of the
Church which she represented in her own
virginity, is described in
Genesis as
Almah, not
Bethulah, as may clearly be
proved
from the words of
Abraham’s
servant, spoken by him in
Mesopotamia:
4480
“And he
said, O
Lord, the
God of my master
Abraham, if now thou do
prosper my
way which I go: behold I stand by the
fountain of
water; and let it
come to pass, that the
maiden which cometh forth to draw, to whom I
shall say, Give me, I
pray thee, a little
water of this
pitcher to
drink; and she shall say to me, Both drink thou, and I will also draw
for thy
camels: let the same be the
woman whom the
Lord hath
appointed
for my master’s son.” Where he speaks of the
maiden coming
forth to draw
water, the Hebrew word is
Almah, that is, a
virgin secluded, and
guarded by her
parents with extreme care.
Or, if this be not so, let them at least show me where the word is
applied to
married women as well, and I will confess my ignorance.
“Behold a
virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” If
virginity be not preferred to
marriage, why did not the
Holy Spirit
choose a
married woman, or a
widow? For at that time Anna the
daughter
of Phanuel, of the
tribe of Aser, was alive, distinguished for
purity,
and always free to
devote herself to prayers and
fasting in the
temple
of
God. If the
life, and good works, and
fasting without
virginity can
merit the
advent of the
Holy Spirit, she might well have been the
mother of our
Lord. Let us hasten to the
rest:
4481
“The
virgin daughter of
Zion
hath
despised thee and
laughed thee to
scorn.” To her whom he
called
daughter the
prophet also gave the title
virgin, for
fear that
if he spoke only of a
daughter, it might be supposed that she was
married. This is the
virgin daughter whom elsewhere he thus addresses:
4482
“
Sing, O
barren, thou that dost
not bear;
break forth into singing, and
cry aloud, thou that didst not
travail with
child: for more are the
children of the
desolate, than the
children of the
married wife, saith the
Lord.” This is she of
whom
God by the mouth of Jeremiah speaks, saying:
4483
“Can a
maid forget her
ornaments, or a
bride her attire.” Concerning her we read of a
great
miracle in the same
prophecy4484
—that a
woman should compass a
man, and that the
Father of all things should be contained in a
virgin’s
womb.
33. “Granted,” says Jovinianus, “that
there is a difference between marriage and virginity, what have you to
say to this,—Suppose a virgin and a widow were baptized, and
continued as they were, what difference will there be between
them?” What we have already said concerning Peter and John, Anna
and Mary, may be of service here. For if there is no difference between
a virgin and a widow, both being baptized, because baptism makes a new
man, upon the same principle harlots and prostitutes, if they are
baptized, will be equal to virgins. If previous marriage is no
prejudice to a baptized widow, and past pleasures and the exposure of their bodies to public
lust are no detriment in the case of harlots, once they have approached
the laver they will gain the rewards of virginity. It is one thing to
unite with God a mind pure and free from any stain of memory, another
to remember the foul and forced embraces of a man, and in recollection
to act a part which you do not in person. Jeremiah, who was4485
sanctified in the
womb, and was known
in his mother’s
belly,
enjoyed the high privilege because he was
predestined to the
blessing of
virginity. And when all were captured,
and even the
vessels of the
temple were plundered by the King of
Babylon, he alone was
4486
| 4486 Jer. xxxix. 11; xl. i. |
liberated by
the
enemy, knew not the insults of
captivity, and was supported by the
conquerors; and Nebuchadnezzar, though he gave Nebuzaradan no charge
concerning the Holy of Holies, did give him charge concerning Jeremiah.
For that is the true
temple of
God, and that is the Holy of Holies,
which is
consecrated to the
Lord by pure
virginity. On the other
hand,
Ezekiel, who was kept captive in
Babylon, who saw the
4487
storm approaching from the north,
and the whirlwind sweeping all before it, says,
4488
“My
wife died in the evening
and I did in the morning as I was commanded.” For the
Lord had
previously told him that in that day he should open his mouth, and
speak, and no longer keep
silence. Mark well, that while his
wife was
living he was not at
liberty to
admonish the people. His
wife died, the
bond of wedlock was broken, and without the least hesitation he
constantly
devoted himself to the prophetic
office. For he who was
called being free, is truly the
Lord’s bondservant. I do not deny
the
blessedness of
widows who remain such after their
baptism; nor do I
disparage those
wives who maintain their chastity in wedlock; but as
they attain a greater
reward with
God than
married women who pay the
marriage due, let
widows themselves be content to give the preference
to
virginity. For if a chastity which comes too late, when the glow of
bodily
pleasure is no longer felt, makes them feel superior to
married
women, why should they not acknowledge themselves inferior to perpetual
virginity.
34. All that goes for nothing, says Jovinianus, because
even bishops, priests, and deacons, husbands of one wife, and having
children, were appointed by the Apostle. Just as the Apostle4489
says he has no
commandment
respecting
virgins, and yet gives his
advice, as one who had obtained
mercy from the
Lord, and is anxious throughout the whole discussion to
give
virginity the preference over
marriage, and advises what he does
not venture to command, lest he seem to lay a
snare, and to put a
heavier burden upon man’s
nature than it can bear; so also in
establishing the constitution of the
Church, inasmuch as the
elements
of the early
Church were drawn from the Gentiles, he made the rules for
fresh believers somewhat lighter that they might not in alarm shrink
from keeping them. Then, again, the
Apostles and
elders wrote
4490
letters from
Jerusalem that no heavier
burden should be laid on Gentile
believers than that they should keep
themselves from
idolatry, and from
fornication, and from things
strangled. As though they were
providing for
infant children, they gave
them
milk to drink, not solid
food. Nor did they lay down rules for
continence, nor hint at
virginity, nor urge to
fasting, nor repeat the
directions
4491
given in the
Gospel to the
Apostles, not to have two tunics, nor
scrip, nor
money in their
girdles, nor
staff in their
hand, nor shoes on their
feet. And they
certainly did not bid them,
4492
if they
wished to be
perfect, go and sell all that they had and give to the
poor, and “come follow me.” For if the young man who
boasted of having done all that the
law enjoins, when he heard this
went away sorrowful, because he had great possessions, and the
Pharisees derided an utterance such as this from our
Lord’s
lips:
how much more would the vast multitude of Gentiles, whose highest
virtue consisted in not plundering another’s goods, have
repudiated the obligation of perpetual chastity and continence, when
they were told in the letter to keep themselves from
idols, and from
fornication, seeing that
fornication was heard of among them, and such
fornication as was not “even among the Gentiles.” But the
very choice of a
bishop makes for me. For he does not say: Let a
bishop
be chosen who marries one
wife and begets
children; but who marries one
wife, and
4493
| 4493 1 Tim. iii. 2, 4; Tit. i. 6. |
has his
children in subjection
and well
disciplined. You surely admit that he is no
bishop who during
his episcopate begets
children. The reverse is the case—if he be
discovered, he will not be bound by the ordinary obligations of a
husband, but will be
condemned as an
adulterer. Either permit
4494
priests to perform the
work of
marriage with the result that
virginity and
marriage are on a par: or
if it is
unlawful for
priests to touch their
wives, they are so
far
holy in that they
imitate virgin chastity. But something more follows.
A layman, or any
believer, cannot
pray unless he
abstain from sexual
intercourse. Now a
priest must
always offer sacrifices for the people: he must therefore always
pray.
And if he must always
pray, he must always be
released from the
duties
of
marriage. For even under the old
law they who used to offer
sacrifices for the people not only remained in their
houses, but
purified themselves for the occasion by separating from their
wives,
nor would they drink
wine or
strong drink which are wont to stimulate
lust. That
married men are elected to the
priesthood, I do not deny:
the number of
virgins is not so great as that of the
priests required.
Does it follow that because all the strongest men are chosen for the
army, weaker men should not be taken as well? All cannot be
strong. If
an
army were constituted of
strength only, and numbers went for
nothing, the feebler men might be
rejected. As it is, men of second or
third-rate
strength are chosen, that the
army may have its full
numerical complement. How is it, then, you will say, that frequently at
the ordination of
priests a
virgin is passed over, and a
married man
taken? Perhaps because he lacks other qualifications in keeping with
virginity, or it may be that he is thought a
virgin, and is not: or
there may be a stigma on his
virginity, or at all events
virginity
itself makes him
proud, and while he plumes himself on mere bodily
chastity, he neglects other
virtues; he does not cherish the
poor: he
is too fond of
money. It sometimes happens that a man has a gloomy
visage, a frowning brow, a
walk as though he were in a solemn
procession, and so offends the people, who, because they have no fault
to find with his
life,
hate his mere
dress and gait. Many are chosen
not out of affection for themselves, but out of
hatred for another. In
most cases the
election is won by mere simplicity, while the shrewdness
and discretion of another candidate elicit opposition as though they
were evils. Sometimes the judgement of the commoner people is at fault,
and in testing the qualities of the
priesthood, the individual inclines
to his own character, with the result that he looks not so much for a
good candidate as for one like himself. Not unfrequently it happens
that
married men, who form the larger portion of the people, in
approving
married candidates seem to approve themselves, and it does
not occur to them that the mere fact that they prefer a
married person
to a
virgin is evidence of their inferiority to
virgins. What I am
going to say will perhaps offend many. Yet I will say it, and good men
will not be
angry with me, because they will not feel the
sting of
conscience. Sometimes it is the fault of the
bishops, who choose into
the ranks of the clergy not the
best, but the cleverest, men, and think
the more simple as well as
innocent ones incapable; or, as though they
were distributing the offices of an earthly service, they give posts to
their
kindred and relations; or they listen to the dictates of
wealth.
And, worse than all, they give promotion to the clergy who besmear them
with
flattery. To take the other view, if the
Apostle’s meaning
be that
marriage is necessary in a
bishop, the
Apostle himself ought
not to have been a
bishop, for he said,
4495
“Yet I would that all men were
even as I myself.” And John will be thought unworthy of this
rank, and all the
virgins, and the continent, the fairest gems that
give
grace and ornament to the
Church.
Bishop,
priest, and
deacon, are
not honourable distinctions, but names of offices. And we do not read:
4496
“If a man seeketh the
office of a
bishop, he desireth a good degree,” but, “he desireth a
good
work,” because by being placed in the higher order an
opportunity is afforded him, if he choose to avail himself of it, for
the
practice of
virtue.
35. “The bishop, then, must be without reproach,
so that he is the slave of no vice: “the husband of one
wife,” that is, in the past, not in the present;
“sober,” or4497
| 4497 V. supra, c.
27. R.V. “temperate.” Ellicott observes, “under any
circumstances the derivative translation Vigilant, Auth., though
possibly defensible in the verb, is a needless and doubtful extension
of the primary meaning.” |
better, as it
is in the
Greek, “vigilant,” that is
νηφάλεον;
“
chaste,” for that is the
4498
| 4498 R.V.
“orderly.” V. above, c. 27. |
meaning of
σὼφρονα;
4499
| 4499 κόσμιον. R.V.
“orderly.” |
“distinguished,” both by
chastity and
conduct: “hospitable,” so that he
imitates
Abraham, and with
strangers, nay rather
in strangers,
entertains
Christ; “apt to
teach,” for it
profits nothing to
enjoy the
consciousness of
virtue, unless a man be able to
instruct the people
intrusted to him, so that he can
exhort in
doctrine, and refute the
gainsayers;
4500
| 4500 Non vinolentum. R.V.
“no brawler,” i.e., as the Margin explains,
“not quarrelsome over wine.” The original is not thus a
mere synonym for νηφάλιος in v.
2. |
“not a drunkard,” for he
who is constantly in the Holy of Holies and offers sacrifices, will not
drink
wine and
strong drink, since
wine is a luxury. If a
bishop drink
at all, let it be in such a way that no one will know whether he has
drunk or not. “No
striker,” that is,
4501
| 4501 So Chrysostom and
Theodoret. The simple meaning appears to suit the context better. |
a
striker of men’s consciences, for
the
Apostle is not pointing out what a boxer, but a pontiff ought not
to do. He directly
teaches what he ought to do: “but
gentle, not
contentious, no
lover of
money, one that ruleth well his own
house,
having his
children in subjection
with all chastity.” See what chastity is required in a
bishop! If
his
child be unchaste, he himself cannot be a
bishop, and he offends
God in the same way as did
4502
Eli the
priest,
who had indeed
rebuked his sons, but because he had not put away the
offenders, fell backwards and
died before the
lamp of
God went out.
4503
“
Women in like manner must be
chaste,” and so on. In every grade, and in both sexes, chastity
has the
chief place. You see then that the
blessedness of a
bishop,
priest, or
deacon, does not
lie in the fact that they are
bishops,
priests, or
deacons, but in their having the
virtues which their names
and offices imply. Otherwise, if a
deacon be holier than his
bishop,
his lower grade will not give him a worse standing with
Christ. If it
were so,
Stephen the
deacon, the first to wear the martyr’s
crown, would be less in the
kingdom of
heaven than many
bishops, and
than Timothy and Titus, whom I venture to make neither inferior nor yet
superior to him. Just as in the legions of the
army there are generals,
tribunes, centurions, javelin-men, and
light-armed troops, common
soldiers, and
companies, but once the
battle begins, all distinctions
of rank are dropped, and the one thing looked for is valour: so too in
this
camp and in this
battle, in which we
contend against
devils, not
names but
deeds are needed: and under the true commander,
Christ, not
the man who has the highest title has the greatest
fame, but he who is
the bravest warrior.
36. But you will say: “If everybody were a virgin,
what would become of the human race”? Like shall here beget like.
If everyone were a widow, or continent in marriage, how will mortal men
be propagated? Upon this principle there will be nothing at all for
fear that something else may cease to exist. To put a case: if all men
were philosophers, there would be no husbandmen. Why speak of
husbandmen? there would be no orators, no lawyers, no teachers of the
other professions. If all men were leaders, what would become of the
soldiers? If all were the head, whose head would they be called, when
there were no other members? You are afraid that if the desire for
virginity were general there would be no prostitutes, no adulteresses,
no wailing infants in town or country. Every day the blood of
adulterers4504
| 4504 The Code of
Constantine, following the Mosaic law, imposed the penalty of death for
adultery. See Gibbon, ch. xliv. |
is shed,
adulterers are
condemned,
and
lust is raging and rampant in the very presence of the
laws and the
symbols of
authority and the
courts of
justice. Be not afraid that all
will become
virgins:
virginity is a hard matter, and therefore rare,
because it is hard: “Many are called, few chosen.” Many
begin, few persevere. And so the
reward is great for those who have
persevered. If all were able to be
virgins, our
Lord would never have
said:
4505
“He that is able to receive it,
let him receive it:” and the
Apostle would not have hesitated to
give his
advice,—
4506
“Now
concerning
virgins I have no
commandment of the
Lord.” Why then,
you will say, were the organs of generation
created, and why were we so
fashioned by the all-
wise creator, that we
burn for one another, and
long for
natural intercourse? To reply is to endanger our modesty: we
are, as it were, between two
rocks, the
4507
| 4507 Two rocky islands
in the Euxine, that, according to the fable, floated about, dashing
against and rebounding from each other, until at length they became
fixed on the passage of the Argo between them.” |
Symplegades of necessity and
virtue, on
either side; and must make
shipwreck of either our sense of
shame, or
of the cause we
defend: If we reply to your suggestions,
shame covers
our face. If
shame secures silence, in a manner we seem to
desert our
post, and to leave the ground clear to the raging foe. Yet it is
better, as the
story goes, to shut our
eyes and
fight like the
4508
blindfold gladiators, than not to repel
with the
shield of
truth the
darts aimed at us. I can indeed say:
“Our
hinder parts which are banished from sight, and the lower
portions of the abdomen, which perform the functions of
nature, are the
Creator’s
work.” But inasmuch as the physical conformation
of the organs of generation testifies to difference of sex, I shall
briefly reply: Are we never then to forego
lust, for
fear that we may
have members of this
kind for nothing? Why then should a
husband keep
himself from his
wife? Why should a
widow persevere in chastity, if we
were only
born to
live like
beasts? Or what harm does it do me if
another man
lies with my
wife? For as the teeth were made for chewing,
and the
food masticated passes into the
stomach, and a man is not
blamed for giving my
wife bread: similarly if it was intended that the
organs of generation should always be performing their
office, when my
vigour is spent let another take my place, and, if I may so speak, let
my
wife quench her burning
lust where she can. But what does the
Apostle mean by exhorting to continence, if continence be contrary to
nature? What does our
Lord mean when He
instructs us in the various
kinds of
eunuchs.
4509
Surely
4510
the
Apostle who bids us emulate his own
chastity, must be asked, if we are to be consistent, Why are you like
other men,
Paul? Why are you
distinguished from the
female sex by a beard,
hair, and other
peculiarities of person? How is it that you have not swelling
bosoms,
and are not broad at the hips, narrow at the chest? Your voice is
rugged, your
speech rough, your eyebrows more shaggy. To no purpose you
have all these manly qualities, if you forego the embraces of
women. I
am compelled to say something and become a
fool: but you have forced me
to
dare to speak. Our
Lord and Saviour,
4511
Who though He was in the form of
God, condescended to take the form of
a
servant, and became
obedient to the
Father even unto
death, yea the
death of the
cross—what necessity was there for Him to be
born
with members which He was not going to use? He certainly was
circumcised to manifest His sex. Why did he cause John the
Apostle and
John the Baptist to make themselves
eunuchs through
love of Him, after
causing them to be
born men? Let us then who believe in
Christ follow
His example. And if we knew Him after the
flesh, let us no longer know
Him according to the
flesh. The substance of our resurrection bodies
will certainly be the same as now, though of higher
glory. For the
Saviour after His descent into
hell had so
far the selfsame body in
which He was crucified, that
4512
He showed the
disciples the marks of the
nails in His
hands and the
wound in His
side. Moreover, if we deny the identity of His body because
4513
He entered though the
doors were shut,
and this is not a property of human bodies, we must deny also that
Peter and the
Lord had real bodies because they
4514
walked upon the
water, which is contrary
to
nature.
4515
“In the resurrection of the
dead they will neither marry nor be given in
marriage, but will be like
the
angels.” What others will hereafter be in
heaven, that
virgins begin to be on
earth. If likeness to the
angels is
promised us
(and there is no difference of sex among the
angels), we shall either
be of no sex as are the
angels, or at all events which is clearly
proved, though we rise from the dead in our own sex, we shall not
perform the functions of sex.
37. But why do we argue, and why are we eager to frame a
clever and victorious reply to our opponent?4516
“Old things have passed away,
behold all things have become new.” I will
run through the
utterances of the
Apostles, and as to the instances afforded by
Solomon
I added short expositions to facilitate their being understood, so now
I will go over the passages bearing on
Christian purity and continence,
and will make of many
proofs a connected series. By this method I shall
succeed in omitting nothing relating to chastity, and shall
avoid being
tediously long. Amongst other passages,
Paul the
Apostle writes to the
Romans:
4517
“What fruit then had ye at
that time in the things whereof ye are now
ashamed? for the end of
those things is
death. But now being made free from
sin, and become
servants to
God, ye have your fruit unto
sanctification, and the end
eternal life.” I suppose too that the end of
marriage is
death.
But the compensating fruit of
sanctification, fruit belonging either to
virginity or to continence, is
eternal life. And afterwards:
4518
“Wherefore, my
brethren, ye also
were made dead to the
law through the body of
Christ; that ye should be
joined to another, even to him who was
raised from the dead, that we
might bring forth fruit unto
God. For when we were in the
flesh, the
sinful passions, which were through the
law,
wrought in our members to
bring forth fruit unto
death. But now we have been discharged from the
law, having
died to that wherein we were holden; so that we serve in
newness of the Spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.”
“When,” he says, “we were in the
flesh, and not in
the
newness of the Spirit but in the oldness of the letter,” we
did those things which pertained to the
flesh, and bore fruit unto
death. But now because we are dead to the
law, through the body of
Christ, let us bear fruit to
God, that we may
belong to Him who rose
from the dead. And elsewhere, having previously said,
4519
| 4519 Rom. vii. 14, 24, 25. |
“I know that the
law is
spiritual,” and having discussed at some length the
violence of
the
flesh which frequently drives us to do what we would not, he at
last continues: “O
wretched man that I am! who shall
deliver me
out of the body of this
death? I thank
God through
Jesus Christ our
Lord.” And again, “So then I myself with the
mind serve the
law of
God; but with the
flesh the
law of
sin.” And,
4520
“There is therefore now no
condemnation to them that are in
Christ Jesus, who
walk not after the
flesh. For the
law of the Spirit of
life in
Christ Jesus made me free
from the
law of
sin and
death.” And more clearly in what follows
he
teaches that
Christians do not
walk according to the
flesh but
according to the Spirit:
4521
“For they
that are after the
flesh do
mind the things of the
flesh; but they that
are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For the
mind of the
flesh is
death; but the
mind of the spirit is
life and
peace: because
the
mind of the
flesh is enmity against
God; for it is not subject to the
law of
God,
neither indeed can it be: and they that are in the
flesh cannot please
God. But ye are not in the
flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the
Spirit of
God dwelleth in you,” and so on to where he says,
4522
“So then,
brethren, we are
debtors, not to the
flesh, to
live after the
flesh: for if ye
live
after the
flesh, ye must
die; but if by the spirit ye
mortify the
deeds
of the body, ye shall
live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of
God, these are sons of
God.” If the
4523
wisdom of the
flesh is enmity against
God, and they who are in the
flesh cannot please
God, I think that they
who perform the functions of
marriage love the
wisdom of the
flesh, and
therefore are in the
flesh. The
Apostle being desirous to withdraw us
from the
flesh and to join us to the Spirit, says afterwards:
4524
“I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of
God, to present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not fashioned according to this
world: but be ye
transformed by
the renewing of your
mind, that ye may
prove what is the good and
acceptable and
perfect will of
God. For I say, through the
grace that
was given me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself
more highly than he ought to think; but to think according to
chastity”
4525
(not
soberly as the
Latin versions badly render), but
“think,” he says, “according to chastity,” for
the
Greek words are
ἐις τὸ
σωφρονεὶν. Let us
consider what the
Apostle says: “Be ye
transformed by the
renewing of your
mind, that ye may
prove what is the good and
acceptable and
perfect will of
God.” What he says is something
like this—
God indeed permits
marriage, He permits second
marriages, and if necessary, prefers even third marriages to
fornication and
adultery. But we who ought to present our bodies a
living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God, which is our reasonable
service, should consider, not what
God permits, but what He wishes:
that we may
prove what is the good and acceptable and
perfect will of
God. It follows that what He merely permits is neither good, nor
acceptable, nor
perfect. And he gives his reasons for this
advice:
4526
“Knowing the
season, that now it
is high time for you to
awake out of
sleep: for now is
salvation nearer
to us than when we first believed. The
night is
far spent, and the day
is at
hand.” And lastly: “Put ye on the
Lord Jesus Christ,
and make not provision for the
flesh, to fulfil the
lusts
thereof.”
God’s will is one thing, His indulgence another.
Whence, writing to the Corinthians, he says,
4527
“I,
brethren, could not speak
unto you as unto
spiritual, but as unto
carnal, even as unto
babes in
Christ. I have fed you with
milk, and not with
meat: for hitherto ye
were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet
carnal.” He who
4528
| 4528 That is, under
the dominion of the psyche, or principle of life common to man
and the beasts, hence, natural. Opposed to the psyche is the
pneuma, capable of being influenced by the Spirit of God. A man
thus influenced is pneumatikos or spiritual. See also 1 Cor. xv. 44. |
is in the
merely
animal state, and does not receive the things pertaining to the
Spirit of
God (for he is foolish, and cannot understand them, because
they are spiritually discerned), he is not fed with the
food of
perfect
chastity, but with the coarse
milk of
marriage. As through man came
death, so also through man came the resurrection of the dead. As in
Adam we all
die, so in
Christ we shall all be made alive. Under the
law
we served the old
Adam, under the
Gospel let us serve the new
Adam. For
the first man
Adam was made a living
soul, the last
Adam was made a
quickening spirit.
4529
“The
first man is of the
earth, earthy: the second man is of
heaven. As is
the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly,
such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of
the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I
say,
brethren, that
flesh and
blood cannot
inherit the
Kingdom of
God;
neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption.” This is so clear
that no explanation can make it clearer: “
Flesh and
blood,”
he says, “cannot
inherit the
Kingdom of
God, neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption.” If
corruption attaches to all
intercourse, and incorruption is characteristic of chastity, the
rewards of chastity cannot
belong to
marriage.
4530
“For we know that if the earthly
house of this
tabernacle be dissolved, we have a
building from
God, a
house not made with
hands,
eternal, in the heavens. For verily in this
we
groan, longing to be
clothed upon with our
habitation which is from
heaven. We are willing to be absent from the body, and to be at
home
with the
Lord. Wherefore also we make it our aim, whether in the body,
or out of the body, to be well-pleasing unto
God.” And by way of
more fully explaining what he did not wish them to be he says
elsewhere:
4531
“I
espoused you to one
husband, that I might present you as a pure
virgin to
Christ.”
But if you choose to apply the words to the whole
Assembly of
believers, and in this betrothal to
Christ include both
married women,
and the twice-
married, and
widows,
and
virgins, that also makes for us. For whilst he invites all to
chastity and to the
reward of
virginity, he shows that
virginity is
more excellent than all these conditions. And again writing to the
Galatians he says:
4532
“Because by the works of the
law shall no
flesh be
justified.” Among the works of the
law is
marriage, and
accordingly under it they are
cursed who have no
children. And if under
the
Gospel it is permitted to have
children, it is one thing to make a
concession to
weakness, another to hold out
rewards to
virtue.
38. Something else I will say to my friends who marry
and after long chastity and continence begin to burn and are as wanton
as the brutes:4533
“Are
ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the
flesh? Did ye
suffer so many things in
vain?” If the
Apostle in
the case of some persons loosens the cords of continence, and lets them
have a slack rein, he does so on account of the
infirmity of the
flesh.
This is the
enemy he has in view when he once more says:
4534
“
Walk by the Spirit, and ye
shall not
fulfill the
lust of the
flesh. For the
flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
flesh.” It is unnecessary
now to speak of the works of the
flesh: it would be tedious, and he who
chooses can easily
gather them from the letter of the
Apostle. I will
only speak of the Spirit and its fruits,
love,
joy,
peace, long
suffering,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
meekness,
4535
| 4535 Properly,
self-control in the wide sense. |
continence. All the
virtues of the
Spirit are supported and protected by continence, which is as it were
their solid
foundation and crowning point. Against such there is no
law.
4536
“And they that are of
Christ have
crucified their
flesh with the passions and the
lusts thereof. If we
live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also
walk.” Why do we
who with
Christ have crucified our
flesh and its passions and desires
again desire to do the things of the
flesh?
4537
“Whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also
reap. For he that soweth unto his own
flesh, shall of the
flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the
Spirit
reap eternal life.” I think that he who has a
wife, so
long as he reverts to the
practice in
question, that
Satan may not
tempt him, is sowing to the
flesh and not to the Spirit. And he who
sows to the
flesh (the words are not mine, but the
Apostle’s)
reaps corruption.
God the
Father chose us in
Christ before the
foundation of the
world, that we might be holy and without spot before
Him.
4538
We walked in the
lusts of the
flesh,
doing the desires of the
flesh and of the thoughts, and were
children
of
wrath, even as the
rest. But now He has
raised us up with Him, and
made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places in
Christ Jesus,
4539
that we may put away according to our
former manner of
life the old man, which is
corrupt according to the
lusts of
deceit, and that
blessing may be applied to us which so finely
concludes the mystical
Epistle to the Ephesians:
4540
“
Grace be with all them that
love
our
Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness.”
4541
“For our citizenship is in
heaven;
from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the
Lord Jesus Christ: who
shall fashion anew the body of our
humiliation, that it may be
conformed to the body of his
glory.
4542
Whatsoever
things then are true, whatsoever are
chaste, whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things pertain to
purity, let us join ourselves to
these, let us follow these.
4543
Christ hath
reconciled us in his body to
God the
Father through his
death, and has
presented us holy and without spot, and without
blame before himself:
in whom we have been also circumcised, not with the
circumcision made
with
hands, to the spoiling of the body of the
flesh, but with the
circumcision of
Christ, having been buried with him in
baptism, wherein
also we rose with him. If then we have risen with
Christ, let us
seek
those things which are above, where
Christ sitteth on the right
hand of
God; let us set our affections on things above, not upon the things
that are upon the
earth. For we are dead, and our
life is hid with
Christ in
God. When
Christ our
life shall appear, then we also shall
appear with him in
glory.
4544
No
soldier on
service entangleth himself in the affairs of this
life; that he may
please him who enrolled him as a
soldier.
4545
For the
grace of
God hath appeared,
bringing
salvation to all men, instructing us, to the intent that,
denying
ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should
live purely and
righteously and godly in this present
world.”
39. The day would not be long enough were I to attempt
to relate all that the Apostle enjoins concerning purity. These things
are those concerning which our Lord said to the Apostles:4546
“I have yet many things to say
unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he shall
guide you into all the
truth.” After the
crucifixion of
Christ, we find in the
4547
Acts of the
Apostles that one
house,
that of
Philip the
Evangelist,
produced four
virgin daughters, to the end that Cæsarea, where the
Gentile
Church had been
consecrated in the person of
Cornelius the
centurion, might afford an illustration of
virginity. And whereas our
Lord said in the
Gospel:
4548
“The
law and the
prophets were until John,” they because they were
virgins are related to have prophesied even after John. For they could
not be bound by the
law of the Old Testament, who had shone with the
brightness of
virginity. Let us pass on to James, who was called the
brother of the
Lord, a man of such sanctity and
righteousness, and
distinguished by so rigid and perpetual a
virginity, that even
4549
| 4549 The passage is
not found in existing copies of Josephus. |
Josephus, the
Jewish historian, relates
that the
overthrow of
Jerusalem was due to his
death. He, the first
bishop of the
Church at
Jerusalem, which was composed of
Jewish
believers, to whom
Paul went, accompanied by Titus and
Barnabas, says
in his
Epistle:
4550
“Be not
deceived, my
beloved brethren. Every good
gift and every
perfect boon
is from above, coming down from the
Father of lights,
4551
| 4551 R.V. “can be
no variation.” The word “difference,” as used by
Jerome, is explained by the context. |
with whom there is no difference, neither
shadow that is cast by turning. Of his own will he brought us forth by
the word of
truth, that we should be a
kind of first-fruits of his
creatures.” Himself a
virgin, he
teaches virginity in a
mystery.
Every
perfect gift cometh down from above, where
marriage is unknown;
and it cometh down, not from any one you please, but from the
Father of
lights, Who says to the
apostles, “Ye are the
light of the
world;” with Whom there is no difference of
Jew, or Gentile, nor
does that
shadow which was the companion of the
law,
trouble those who
have believed from among the
nations; but with His word He
begat us,
and with the word of
truth, because some
shadow, image, and likeness of
truth went before in the
law, that we might be the first-fruits of His
creatures. And as He who was Himself the
4552
first begotten from the dead has
raised
all that have
died in Him: so He who was a
virgin,
consecrated the
first-fruits of His
virgins in His own
virgin self. Let us also
consider what Peter thinks of the calling of the Gentiles:
4553
“
Blessed be the
God and
Father of
our
Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great
mercy begat us again
unto a living
hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead,
unto an inheritance
incorruptible, and
undefiled, and that fadeth not
away, reserved in
heaven for you, who by the
power of
God are
guarded
through
faith unto a
salvation ready to be
revealed in the last
time.” Where we read of an inheritance
incorruptible, and
undefiled, and that fadeth not away, prepared in
heaven and reserved
for the last time, and of the
hope of
eternal life when they will
neither marry, nor be given in
marriage, there, in other words, the
privileges of
virginity are described. For he shows as much in what
follows:
4554
“Wherefore girding up the
loins of your
mind, be sober and set your
hope perfectly on the
grace
that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ; as
children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your
former
lusts in the time of your ignorance; but like as he which called
you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living;
because it is written, ye shall be holy; for I am holy.
4555
For we were not
redeemed with
contemptible things, with
silver or
gold; but with the precious
blood
of a
lamb without spot,
Jesus Christ,
4556
that we might
purify our
souls in
obedience to the
truth, having been begotten again not of corruptible
seed, but of
incorruptible, through the word of
God,
4557
| 4557 In Jerome’s
rendering ‘living and abiding,’ are attributes of
God. But in the original the participles may be taken as
predicates of either word or God. The R.V. refers them to
the former. |
who liveth and abideth. And as living
stones let us be built up a
spiritual house, an holy
priesthood
offering up
spiritual sacrifices through
Christ our
Lord.
4558
For we are an
elect race, a
royal
priesthood, a holy
nation, a people for
God’s own possession.
4559
Christ died for us in the
flesh. Let us
arm ourselves with the same conversation as did
Christ; for he that
hath
suffered in the
flesh hath ceased from
sin; that we should no
longer
live the
rest of our time in the
flesh to the
lusts of men, but
to the will of
God. For the time past is sufficient for us when we
walked in lasciviousness,
lusts, and other vices. Great and precious
are the
promises attaching to
virginity which He has given us,
4560
that through it we may become partakers of
the
divine nature, having
escaped from the
corruption that is in the
world through
lust.
4561
The
Lord knoweth
how to
deliver the godly out of
temptation, and to keep the
unrighteous
under
punishment unto the day of judgement, but chiefly them that
walk
after the
flesh in the
lust of defilement, and
despise dominion,
daring, self-willed. For they, as
beasts of burden, without reason,
think only of their
belly and their
lusts, railers who shall in their
corruption be
destroyed, and shall receive the
reward of
iniquity: men
that
count unrighteousness delight, spots and
blemishes, thinking of nothing but their
pleasures;
having
eyes full of
adultery and insatiable
lust, deceiving
souls not
yet strengthened by the
love of
Christ. For they utter swelling words
and easily
snare the
unlearned with the seduction of the
flesh;
promising them
liberty while they themselves are the
slaves of vice,
luxury, and
corruption. For of what a man is overcome, of the same is
he also brought into
bondage. But if, after they had
escaped the
defilements of the
world through the
knowledge of our Saviour
Jesus
Christ, they are again overcome by that which they before overcame, the
last
state is become worse with them than the first. And it were better
for them not to have known the way of
righteousness, than, after
knowing it, to turn back and
forsake the holy
commandment delivered
unto them. And it has happened unto them according to the true
proverb,
the
dog hath turned to his own
vomit again, and the sow that had
washed
to wallowing in the mire.” I have hesitated, for
fear of being
tedious, to quote the whole passage of the second
Epistle of Peter, and
have merely shown that the
Holy Spirit in
prophecy foretold the
teachers of this time and their
heresy. Lastly, he more clearly denotes
them, saying,
4562
“In the
last days seducing mockers shall come, walking after their own
lusts.”
40. The Apostle has described Jovinianus speaking with
swelling cheeks and nicely balancing his inflated utterances, promising
heavenly liberty, when he himself is the slave of vice and
self-indulgence, a dog returning to his vomit. For although he boasts
of being a monk, he has exchanged his dirty tunic, bare feet, common
bread, and drink of water, for a snowy dress, sleek skin, honey-wine
and dainty dishes, for the sauces of4563
Apicius and
4564
| 4564 Paxamus wrote a
treatise on cooking, which, Suidas states, was arranged in alphabetical
order. |
Paxamus, for baths and rubbings, and for
the cook-shops. Is it not clear that he prefers his
belly to
Christ,
and thinks his ruddy complexion worth the
kingdom of
heaven? And yet
that handsome monk so fat and sleek, and of bright
appearance, who
always
walks with the
air of a bridegroom, must either marry a
wife if
he is to show that
virginity and
marriage are equal: or if he does not
marry one, it is useless for him to bandy words with us when his acts
are on our side. And John agrees with this almost to the letter:
4565
“
Love not the
world, neither the
things that are in the
world. If any man
love the
world, the
love of
the
Father is not in him. For all that is in the
world is the
lust of
the
flesh, and the
lust of the
eyes, and the
pride of this
life, which
is not of the
Father, but is of the
world.” And, “The
world
passeth away, and the
lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of
God
abideth for ever. A new
commandment have I written unto you, which
thing is true both in
Christ and in you; because the
darkness is
passing away, and the true
light already shineth.” And again,
4566
“
Beloved, now are we the
children
of
God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. But we know
that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him: for we shall see
him even as he is. And every one that hath this
hope purifieth himself,
even as he is pure.
4567
Herein is our
love made
perfect, if we have
boldness in the day of judgement: that as
he is, even so may we be in this
world.” The
Epistle of Jude also
expresses nearly the same:
4568
“Hating even the
garment spotted by the
flesh.” Let us read
the
Apocalypse of John, and we shall there find the
Lamb upon Mount
Sion,
4569
and with Him “a
hundred and
forty-four
thousand of them that were sealed, having His name and the
name of His
Father written in their foreheads, who
sing a new
song, and
no one can
sing that
song save they who have been
redeemed out of the
earth. These are they who have not
defiled themselves with
women, for
they continued
virgins. These follow the
Lamb whithersoever He goeth:
for they were
redeemed from among men, first-fruits to
God and to the
Lamb, and in their mouth was found no
guile, and they are without
spot.”
4570
Out of each
tribe, the
tribe of
Dan excepted, the place of which is taken by the
tribe of
Levi, twelve
thousand virgins who have been sealed are spoken
of as future
believers, who have not
defiled themselves with
women. And
that we may not suppose the reference to be to those who know not
harlots, he immediately added: “For they continued
virgins.” Whereby he shows that all who have not
preserved their
virginity, in comparison of pure and angelic chastity and of our
Lord
Jesus Christ Himself, are
defiled.
4571
“These are they who
sing a new
song which no man can
sing except him that is a
virgin. These are
first-fruits unto
God and unto the
Lamb, and are without
blemish.” If
virgins are first-fruits, it follows that
widows and
the continent in
marriage, come after the first-fruits, that is, are in
the second and third rank: nor can a lost people be
saved unless it
offer such sacrifices of chastity to
God, and with pure victims
reconcile the spotless
Lamb. It
would be
endless work to explain the
Gospel mystery of the ten
virgins,
five of whom were
wise and five foolish. All I say now is, that as mere
virginity without other works does not
save, so all works without
virginity,
purity, continence, chastity, are imperfect. And we shall
not be
hindered in the least from taking this view by the objection of
our opponent that our
Lord was at
Cana of
Galilee, and joined in the
marriage festivities when He turned
water into
wine. I shall very
briefly reply, that He Who was circumcised on the eighth day, and for
Whom a pair of turtle-
doves and two young pigeons were offered on the
day of purification, like others before He
suffered, shewed His
approval of
Jewish custom, that He might not seem to give His
enemies
just cause for putting Him to
death on the pretext that He
destroyed
the
law and
condemned nature. And even this was done for our sakes. For
by going once to a
marriage, He taught that men should marry only once.
Moreover, at that time it was possible to
injure virginity if
marriage
were not placed next to it, and the
purity of widowhood in the third
rank. But now when
heretics are
condemning wedlock, and
despise the
ordinance of
God, we gladly hear anything he
4572
may say in
praise of
marriage. For the
Church does not
condemn marriage, but makes it subordinate; nor does
she
reject it, but regulates it; for she knows, as was said before,
that
4573
in a great
house there are not only
vessels of
gold and
silver, but also of
wood and earthenware; and that
some are to honour, some to dishonour; and that whoever cleanses
himself will be a
vessel of honour, necessary, prepared for every good
work.
41. I have given enough and more than enough
illustrations from the divine writings of Christian chastity and
angelic virginity. But as I understand that our opponent in his
commentaries summons us to the tribunal of worldly wisdom, and we are
told that views of this kind are never accepted in the world, and that
our religion has invented a dogma against nature, I will quickly run
through Greek and Roman and Foreign History, and will show that
virginity ever took the lead of chastity. Fable relates that Atalanta,
the virgin of Calydonian fame, lived for the chase and dwelt always in
the woods; in other words that she did not set her heart on marriage
with its troubles of pregnancy and of sickness, but upon the nobler
life of freedom and chastity.4574
Harpalyce too,
a Thracian
virgin, is described by the famous
poet; and so is
4575
| 4575 Virg. Æn.
vii. 803: id. xi. 535. |
Camilia,
queen of the Volsci, on whom,
when she came to his assistance, Turnus had no higher
praise which he
could bestow than to call her a
virgin. “O
Virgin,
Glory of
Italy!” And that famous
daughter of
4576
| 4576 Leos was the
hero from whom the tribe Leontis derived its name. Once when Athens was
suffering from famine or plague, the oracle at Delphi demanded that his
daughters should be sacrificed. The father complied. The shrine called
Leocorium was erected by the Athenians to their honour. |
Leos, the lady of the brazen
house,
ever a
virgin, is related to have freed her
country from
pestilence by
her voluntary
death: and the
blood of the
virgin4577
| 4577 Jerome’s
memory appears to be at fault. When the Greek fleet was on its way to
Troy, it was detained by a calm at Aulis. The seer Calchas
advised that Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon should be sacrificed. See
Dict. of Ant. |
Iphigenia is said to have calmed the
stormy
winds. What need to tell of the Sibyls of Erythræ and
Cumæ, and the eight others? for Varro asserts there were ten whose
ornament was
virginity, and
divination the
reward of their
virginity.
But if in the Æolian dialect “Sibyl” is represented by
Θεοβούλη, we must
understand that a
knowledge of the
Counsel of God is rightly
attributed to
virginity alone. We read, too, that Cassandra and
Chryseis, prophetesses of Apollo and Juno, were
virgins. And there were
innumerable priestesses of the Taurian
Diana, and of Vesta. One of
these, Munitia, being suspected of unchastily was
4578
| 4578 According to
the law of Numa, the punishment of a Vestal Virgin for violating the
vow of chastity was stoning to death. Tarquinius Priscus first enacted
that the offender should be buried alive, after being stripped of her
badges of office, scourged and attired like a corpse. “From the
time of the triumvirs each [Vestal] was preceded by a lictor when she
went abroad; consuls and prætors made way for them, and lowered
their fasces; even the tribunes of the plebs respected their holy
character, and if any one passed under their litter, he was put to
death.” |
buried alive, which would be in my
opinion an
unjust punishment, unless the violation of
virginity were
considered a serious
crime. At all events how highly the
Romans always
esteemed
virgins is clear from the fact that consuls and generals even
in their triumphal
chariots and bringing
home the
spoils of
conquered
nations, were wont to make way for them to pass. And so did men of all
ranks. When
4579
Claudia, a Vestal
Virgin, was
suspected of unchastily, and a
vessel containing the image of Cybele
was aground in the Tiber, it is related that she, to
prove her
chastity, with her
girdle drew the
ship which a
thousand men could not
move. Yet, as
4580
the uncle of
Lucan the
poet says, it would have been better if this circumstance had
decorated a chastity tried and
proved, and had not pleaded in defence
of a chastity equivocal. No wonder that we read such things of human
beings, when
heathen error also
invented the
virgin goddesses Minerva
and
Diana, and placed the
Virgin among the twelve
signs of the Zodiac,
by means of which, as they suppose, the
world revolves. It is a
proof of the little esteem in
which they held
marriage that they did not even among the
scorpions,
centaurs, crabs, fishes, and capricorn, thrust in a
husband and
wife.
When the thirty tyrants of Athens had slain Phidon at the banquet, they
commanded his
virgin daughters to come to them,
naked like
harlots, and
there upon the ground,
red with their
father’s
blood, to act the
wanton. For a little while they hid their
grief, and then when they saw
the revellers were intoxicated, going out on the plea of easing
nature,
they embraced one another and threw themselves into a well, that by
death they might
save their
virginity. The
virgin daughter of Demotion,
chief of the Areopagites, having heard of the
death of her
betrothed,
4581
| 4581 In the year
after the death of Alexander (b.c. 323),
Leosthenes defeated Alexander’s general Antipater, near
Thermopylæ. Antipater then threw himself into the town of Lamia
(in Phthiotis in Thessaly) which thus gave its name to the war.
Leosthenes pressed the siege with great vigour, but was killed by a
blow from a stone. |
Leosthenes, who had originated the
Lamian
war, slew herself, for she declared that although in body she
was a
virgin, yet if she were compelled to accept another, she should
regard him as her second
husband, when she had given her
heart to
Leosthenes. So close a
friendship long existed between Sparta and
Messene that for the furtherance of certain
religious rites they even
exchanged
virgins. Well, on one occasion when the men of Messene
attempted to outrage fifty Lacedæmonian
virgins, out of so many
not one consented, but they all most gladly
died in defence of their
chastity. Whence there arose a long and grievous
war, and in the long
run4582
| 4582 Another name
for Messana (or Messene), derived from the Mamertini, a people of
Campania, some of whom were mercenaries in the army of the tyrant
Agathocles, and were quartered in the town. At his death (b.c. 282) they rose and gained possession of it. |
Mamertina was
destroyed. Aristoclides,
tyrant of Orchomenos, fell in
love with a
virgin of Stymphalus, and
when after the
death of her
father she took
refuge in the
temple of
Diana, and embraced the image of the
goddess and could not be dragged
thence by force, she was slain on the spot. Her
death caused such
intense
grief throughout Arcadia that the people took up arms and
avenged the
virgin’s
death.
4583
| 4583 The
semi-legendary hero of the second war between Sparta and Messene. He
lived about b.c. 270. |
Aristomenes of Messene, a just man,
at a time when the Lacedæmonians, whom he had
conquered, were
celebrating by
night the festival called the
4584
| 4584 The spring
festival held in honour of Hyacinthus, the beautiful youth accidentally
slain by Apollo, and from whose blood was said to have sprung the
flower of the same name. |
Hyacinthia, carried off from the
sportive
bands fifteen
virgins, and fleeing all
night at full
speed got
away from the Spartan territory. His companions wished to outrage them,
but he
admonished them to the
best of his
power not to do so, and when
certain refused to obey, he slew them, and restrained the
rest by
fear.
The maidens were afterwards
ransomed by their kinsmen, and on seeing
Aristomenes
condemned for
murder would not return to their
country
until clasping the
knees of the judges they beheld the protector of
their chastity acquitted. How shall we sufficiently
praise the
daughters of Scedasus at Leuctra in Bœotia? It is related that in
the absence of their
father they hospitably
entertained two
youths who
were passing by, and who having drunk to excess violated the
virgins in
the course of the
night. Being
unwilling to survive the loss of their
virginity, the maidens
inflicted deadly wounds on one another. Nor
would it be right to omit mention of the Locrian
virgins. They were
sent to Ilium according to
custom which had lasted for nearly a
thousand years, and yet not one gave occasion to any idle tale or
filthy rumour of
virginity defiled. Could any one pass over in
silence
the seven
virgins of Miletus who, when the Gauls spread desolation
far
and wide, that they might
suffer no indignity at the
hands of the
enemy,
escaped disgrace by
death, and left to all
virgins the lesson of
their example—that
noble minds care more for chastity than
life?
Nicanor having
conquered and
overthrown Thebes was himself overcome by
a passion for one captive
virgin, whose voluntary self-surrender he
longed for. A captive
maid, he thought, must be only too
glad. But he
found that
virginity is dearer to the pure in
heart than a
kingdom,
when with
tears and
grief he held her in his arms slain by her own
hand.
Greek writers tell also of another Theban
virgin who had been
deflowered by a Macedonian foe, and who, hiding her
grief for a while,
slew the violator of her
virginity as he slept, and then
killed herself
with the
sword, so that she would neither
live when her chastity was
lost, nor
die before she had
avenged herself.
42. To come to the Gymnosophists of India, the opinion
is authoritatively handed down that Budda, the founder of their
religion, had his birth through the side of a virgin. And we need not
wonder at this in the case of Barbarians when cultured Greece supposed
that Minerva at her birth sprang from the head of Jove, and Father
Bacchus from his thigh.4585
| 4585 He succeeded
Plato as president of the Academy (b.c.
347–339). His works are all lost. |
Speusippus
also, Plato’s
nephew, and
4586
| 4586 One of
Aristotle’s pupils, and author of a number of works, none of
which are extant. |
Clearchus in his eulogy of Plato, and
4587
| 4587 Diogenes
Laërtius (so named from Laërte in Cilicia), who probably
lived in the 2nd century after Christ, in the Third Book of his
“Lives of the Philosophers” refers to a treatise by
Anaxelides on the same subject. It has therefore been conjectured that
Jerome may have written Philosophica Historia for
philosophiae. |
Anaxelides in the second book of his
philosophy, relates that
Perictione, the mother of Plato, was violated by an
apparition of
Apollo, and they agree in thinking that the
prince of
wisdom was
born
of a
virgin.
4588
| 4588 Timæus
of Locri, in Italy, a Pythagorean philosopher, is said to have been a
teacher of Plato. There is an extant work bearing his name; but its
genuineness is considered doubtful, and it is in all probability only
an abridgment of Plato’s dialogue of Timæus. |
Timæus
writes that the
4589
| 4589 Damo.
Pythagoras is said to have entrusted his writings to her, and to have
forbidden her to give them to any one. She strictly observed the
command, although she was in extreme poverty, and received many
requests to sell them. According to some accounts Pythagoras had
another daughter, Myia. |
virgin
daughter of
4590
| 4590 Flourished about
b.c. 540–510. |
Pythagoras was at the head of a
band
of
virgins, and
instructed them in chastity.
4591
| 4591 Clement of
Alexandria (died about a.d. 220) in his
Stromata (i.e. literally, patchwork) or
Miscellanies, Bk. iv., relates the same story and gives the
names of the daughters. The Diodorus referred to in the text lived at
Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Sorer (b.c.
323–285), by whom he was said to have been surnamed Cronos
or Saturn, on account of his inability to solve at once
some dialectic problem when dining with the king, perhaps with a play
upon the word chronos (time), or with a sarcastic allusion to
Cronos as the introducer of the arts of civilized life. The philosopher
is said to have taken the disgrace so much to heart, that he wrote a
treatise on the problem, and then died in despair. Another account
derives his name from his teacher Apollonius Cronus. |
Diodorus, the
disciple of Socrates, is
said to have had five
daughters skilled in dialectics and distinguished
for chastity, of whom a full account is given by Philo the master of
4592
| 4592 Born about b.c. 213, died b.c. 129. He
was the determined opponent of the Stoics, and maintained that neither
our senses nor our understanding gives us a safe criterion of
truth. |
Carneades. And mighty
Rome cannot taunt
us as though we had
invented the
story of the
birth of our
Lord and
Saviour from a
virgin; for the
Romans believe that the founders of
their city and race were the
offspring of the
virgin4593
| 4593 The poetical
name of Rhea Silvia, daughter of Numitor and mother of Romulus and
Remus. |
Ilia and of Mars.
43. Let these allusions to the virgins of the world,
brief and hastily gathered from many histories, now suffice. I will
proceed to married women who were reluctant to survive the decease or
violent death of their husbands for fear they might be forced into a
second marriage, and who entertained a marvellous affection for the
only husbands they had. This may teach us that second marriage was
repudiated among the heathen. Dido, the sister of Pygmalion, having
collected a vast amount of gold and silver, sailed to Africa, and there
built Carthage. And when her hand was sought in marriage by Iarbas,
king of Libya, she deferred the marriage for a while until her country
was settled. Not long after, having raised a4594
| 4594 According to the
legend she stabbed herself on the funeral pyre. Jerome ignores the
modifications introduced into the legend by Virgil, who, in defiance of
the common chronology, makes Dido a contemporary of Æneas, and
represents her as destroying herself when forsaken by the hero. |
funeral pyre to the memory of her former
husband Sichæus, she preferred to “
burn rather than to
marry.” Carthage was built by a
woman of chastity, and its end
was a tribute to the excellence of the
virtue. For the
4595
| 4595 Hasdrubal and his
family, with 900 deserters and desperadoes, retired into the temple of
Æsculapius, as if to make a brave defence. But the
commandant’s heart failed him; and, slipping out alone, he threw
himself at the feet of Scipio, and craved for pardon. His wife,
standing on the base of the temple, was near enough to witness the
sight, and reproaching her husband with cowardice, cast herself with
her children into the flames which were now wrapping the Citadel round
on all sides. b.c. 146. |
wife of Hasdrubal, when the city was
captured and set on
fire, and she saw that she could not herself
escape
capture by the
Romans, took her little
children in either
hand and
leaped into the burning ruins of her
house.
44. What need to tell of the wife of4596
| 4596 Son of Nicias the
celebrated Athenian general. |
Niceratus, who, not enduring to wrong
her
husband,
inflicted death upon herself rather than subject herself
to the
lust of the thirty tyrants whom Lysander had set over
conquered
Athens?
4597
| 4597 She succeeded
Mausolus and reigned b.c. 352–350. |
Artemisia, also,
wife of
Mausolus, is related to have been distinguished for chastity. Though
she was
queen of Caria, and is extolled by great
poets and historians,
no higher
praise is bestowed upon her than that when her
husband was
dead she
loved him as much as when he was alive, and built a
tomb so
great that even to the present day all costly
sepulchres are called
after his name,
mausoleums.
4598
| 4598 She was the
wife of Agron, and assumed the sovereign power on the death of her
husband, b.c. 231. War was declared against
her by Rome in consequence of her having caused the assassination of an
ambassador, and in 228 she obtained peace at the cost of the greater
part of her dominions. |
Teuta,
queen of the Illyrians, owed her long sway over brave warriors, and her
frequent victories over
Rome, to her marvellous chastity. The Indians
and almost all the
Barbarians have a plurality of
wives. It is a
law
with them that the favourite
wife must be
burned with her dead
husband.
The
wives therefore vie with one another for the
husband’s
love,
and the highest
ambition of the rivals, and the
proof of chastity, is
to be considered worthy of
death. So then she that is victorious,
having put on her former
dress and ornaments,
lies down beside the
corpse, embracing and kissing it, and to the
glory of chastity despises
the
flames which are burning beneath her. I suppose that she who
dies
thus, wants no second
marriage. The famous Alcibiades, the
friend of
Socrates, when Athens was
conquered, fled to Pharnabazus, who took a
bribe from Lysander the Lacedæmonian
leader and ordered him to be
slain. He was
strangled, and when his head had been
cut off it was sent
to Lysander as
proof of the
murder, but the
rest of his body lay
unburied. His
concubine, therefore, all alone, in defiance of the
command of the cruel
enemy, in the midst of
strangers, and in the face
of
peril, gave him due
burial, for she was ready to
die for the dead
man whom she had
loved when living. Let matrons,
Christian matrons at
all events,
imitate the
fidelity of
concubines, and exhibit in their
freedom what she in her
captivity preserved.
45. Strato, ruler of Sidon, thought of dying by his own
hand, that he might not be the sport of the Persians, who were close by
and whose alliance he had discarded for the friendship of the king of
Egypt. But he drew back in terror, and eying the sword which he had
seized, awaited in alarm the approach of the enemy. His wife, knowing
that he must be immediately taken, wrested the weapon from his hand,
and pierced his side. When the body was properly laid out she lay down
upon it in the agony of death, that she might not violate her virgin
troth in the embraces of another.4599
| 4599 Cyropædeia,
Book vii. |
Xenophon,
in describing the early years of the
elder Cyrus, relates that when her
husband Abradatas was slain, Panthea who had
loved him intensely,
placed herself beside the mangled body, then stabbed herself, and let
her
blood run into her
husband’s
wounds. The
4600
queen whom the king her
husband had shewn
naked and without her
knowledge to his
friend, thought she had good
cause for slaying the king. She judged that she was not
beloved if it
was possible for her to be exhibited to another. Rhodogune,
daughter of
Darius, after the
death of her
husband, put to
death the
nurse who was
trying to
persuade her to marry again.
4601
| 4601 The story, as is
well known, formed the subject of the play by Euripides bearing the
heroine’s name, which was brought out about b.c. 438. |
Alcestis is related in
story to have
voluntarily
died for Admetus, and Penelope’s chastity is the
theme of Homer’s
song. Laodamia’s
praises are also
sung by
the
poets, because, when
4602
| 4602 Protesilaus was
the first of the Greeks to fall at Troy. According to some accounts he
was slain by Hector. When her husband was slain Laodamia begged the
gods to allow her to converse with him for only 3 hours. The request
having been granted, Hermes led Protesilaus back to the upper world,
and when he died a second time, Laodamia died with him. |
Protesilaus was
slain at Troy, she refused to survive him.
46. I may pass on to Roman women; and the first that I
shall mention is4603
| 4603 The wife of L.
Tarquinius Collatinus, whose rape by Sextus led to the dethronement of
Tarquinius Superbus and the establishment of the republic. |
Lucretia, who
would not survive her violated chastity, but
blotted out the stain upon
her person with her own
blood. Duilius, the first
Roman who won a
4604
| 4604 Over the
Carthaginian fleet near Mylæ, 260 b.c. |
naval
triumph, took to
wife a
virgin,
Bilia, of such extraordinary chastity that she was an example even to
an age which held unchastity to be not merely vicious but monstrous.
When he was grown old and
feeble he was once in the course of a quarrel
taunted with having bad
breath. In dudgeon he betook himself
home, and
on complaining to his
wife that she had never told him of it so that he
might remedy the fault, he received the reply that she would have done
so, but she thought that all men had foul
breath as he had. In either
case this
chaste and
noble woman deserves
praise, whether she was not
aware there was anything wrong with her
husband, or if she patiently
endured, and her
husband discovered his unfortunate condition not by
the disgust of a
wife, but by the
abuse of an
enemy. At all events the
woman who marries a second time cannot say this. Marcia, Cato’s
younger
daughter, on being asked after the loss of her
husband why she
did not marry again, replied that she could not find a man who wanted
her more than her
money. Her words
teach us that men in choosing their
wives look for
riches rather than for chastity, and that many in
marrying use not their
eyes but their
fingers. That
must be an
excellent thing which is won by avarice! When the same lady was
mourning the loss of her
husband, and the matrons asked what day would
terminate her
grief, she replied, “The same that terminates my
life.” I
imagine that a
woman who thus followed her
husband in
heart and
mind had no thought of marrying again. Porcia, whom
4605
| 4605 One of the
assassins of Julius Cæsar. Jerome appears to be at fault here.
Porcia, the daughter of Cato by his first wife Atilia, before
marrying Brutus in 45 b.c., had been married
to M. Bibulus and had borne him three children. He died in 48. After
the death of Brutus in 42 she put an end to her own life, probably by
the fumes of a charcoal fire. |
Brutus took to
wife, was a
virgin;
Cato’s
wife,
4606
| 4606 Marcia is related
to have been ceded by Cato to his friend Hortensius. She continued to
live with the latter until his death, when she returned to Cato. |
Marcia, was not
a
virgin; but Marcia went to and fro between Hortensius and Cato, and
was quite content to
live without Cato; while
4607
| 4607 It has been
conjectured that instead of “Marcia, Cato’s younger
daughter,” a few lines above, we should read Porcia. |
Porcia could not
live without Brutus;
for
women attach themselves closely to particular men, and to keep to
one is a
strong link in the
chain of affection. When a relative urged
Annia to marry again (she was of full age and a
goodly person), she
answered, “I shall certainly not do so. For, if I find a good
man, I have no wish to be in
fear of losing him: if a bad one, why must
I put up with a bad
husband after having had a good one?”
4608
| 4608 Probably the
daughter of Cato by his second wife Marcia. |
Porcia the younger, on hearing a
certain lady of good character, who had a second
husband,
praised in
her
house, replied, “A
chaste and
happy matron never marries more
than once.” Marcella the
elder, on being asked by her mother if
she was
glad she was
married, answered, “So much so that I want
nothing more.”
4609
| 4609 Jerome,
apparently, makes a mistake here. Valeria, sister of the Messalas,
married Sulla towards the end of his life. Valeria, the widow of
Galerius, after the death of her husband in 311, rejected the proposals
of Maximinus. Her consequent sufferings are related by Gibbon in his
fourteenth chapter. |
Valeria, sister
of the Messalas, when she lost her
husband Servius, would marry no one
else. On being asked why not, she
said that to her, her
husband Servius was ever alive.
47. I feel that in giving this list of women I have said
far more than is customary in illustrating a point, and that I might be
justly censured by my learned reader. But what am I to do when the
women of our time press me with apostolic authority, and before the
first husband is buried, repeat from morning to night the precepts
which allow a second marriage? Seeing they despise the fidelity which
Christian purity dictates, let them at least learn chastity from the
heathen. A book On Marriage, worth its weight in gold, passes
under the name of4610
| 4610 The Greek
philosopher to whom Aristotle bequeathed his library and the originals
of his own writings. He died b.c. 287, after
being President of the Academy for 35 years. If he were the author of
the book here referred to, it is not to be found among his extant
writings. |
Theophrastus. In
it the
author asks whether a
wise man marries. And after laying down
the conditions—that the
wife must be fair, of good character, and
honest parentage, the
husband in good
health and of ample means, and
after saying that under these circumstances a
wise man sometimes enters
the
state of matrimony, he immediately proceeds thus: “But all
these conditions are seldom satisfied in
marriage. A
wise man therefore
must not take a
wife. For in the first place his study of philosophy
will be
hindered, and it is
impossible for anyone to attend to his
books and his
wife. Matrons want many things, costly
dresses,
gold,
jewels, great outlay,
maid-
servants, all kinds of furniture, litters
and gilded coaches. Then come curtain-lectures the livelong
night: she
complains that one lady goes out better
dressed than she: that another
is looked up to by all: ‘I am a
poor despised nobody at the
ladies’
assemblies.’ ‘Why did you ogle that creature
next
door?’ ‘Why were you talking to the
maid?’
‘What did you bring from the
market?’ ‘I am not
allowed to have a single
friend, or companion.’ She suspects that
her
husband’s
love goes the same way as her
hate. There may be in
some neighbouring city the
wisest of
teachers; but if we have a
wife we
can neither leave her behind, nor take the burden with us. To support a
poor wife, is hard: to put up with a
rich one, is
torture. Notice, too,
that in the case of a
wife you cannot pick and choose: you must take
her as you find her. If she has a bad temper, or is a
fool, if she has
a
blemish, or is
proud, or has bad
breath, whatever her fault may
be—all this we
learn after
marriage.
Horses, asses,
cattle, even
slaves of the smallest worth,
clothes, kettles, wooden seats,
cups, and
earthenware pitchers, are first tried and then
bought: a
wife is the
only thing that is not shown before she is
married, for
fear she may
not give satisfaction. Our
gaze must always be directed to her face,
and we must always
praise her
beauty: if you look at another
woman, she
thinks that she is out of favour. She must be called my lady, her
birth-day must be kept, we must
swear by her
health and wish that she
may survive us, respect must be paid to the
nurse, to the nursemaid, to
the
father’s
slave, to the foster-
child, to the handsome
hanger-on, to the curled darling who manages her affairs, and to the
eunuch who
ministers to the
safe indulgence of her
lust: names which
are only a cloak for
adultery. Upon whomsoever she sets her
heart, they
must have her
love though they want her not. If you give her the
management of the whole
house, you must yourself be her
slave. If you
reserve something for yourself, she will not think you are loyal to
her; but she will turn to
strife and
hatred, and unless you quickly
take care, she will have the
poison ready. If you introduce old
women,
and soothsayers, and
prophets, and vendors of
jewels and silken
clothing, you imperil her chastity; if you shut the
door upon them, she
is
injured and fancies you suspect her. But what is the good of even a
careful
guardian, when an unchaste
wife cannot be watched, and a
chaste
one ought not to be? For necessity is but a faithless
keeper of
chastity, and she alone really deserves to be called pure, who is free
to
sin if she chooses. If a
woman be fair, she soon finds
lovers; if
she be ugly, it is easy to be
wanton. It is difficult to
guard what
many long for. It is annoying to have what no one thinks worth
possessing. But the misery of having an ugly
wife is less than that of
watching a
comely one. Nothing is
safe, for which a whole people sighs
and longs. One man entices with his figure, another with his brains,
another with his wit, another with his open
hand. Somehow, or sometime,
the fortress is captured which is attacked on all sides. Men marry,
indeed, so as to get a manager for the
house, to solace weariness, to
banish solitude; but a
faithful slave is a
far better manager, more
submissive to the master, more observant of his ways, than a
wife who
thinks she
proves herself mistress if she acts in opposition to her
husband, that is, if she does what pleases her, not what she is
commanded. But
friends, and
servants who are under the obligation of
benefits received, are better able to wait upon us in sickness than a
wife who makes us responsible for her
tears (she will sell you enough
to make a deluge for the
hope of a legacy),
boasts of her
anxiety, but
drives her
sick husband to the distraction of
despair. But if she
herself is poorly, we must fall
sick with her and never leave her
bedside. Or if she be a good and agreeable
wife (how rare a
bird she
is!), we have to share her
groans
in childbirth, and
suffer torture when she is in
danger. A
wise man can
never be alone. He has with him the good men of all time, and turns his
mind freely wherever he chooses. What is inaccessible to him in person
he can embrace in thought. And, if men are
scarce, he converses with
God.
4611
| 4611 Cicero at the
beginning of the third book of the De Officiis, makes Cato quote
this saying as one frequently in the mouth of Publius Scipio. |
He is never less alone than when alone.
Then again, to marry for the sake of
children, so that our name may not
perish, or that we may have support in old age, and leave our property
without dispute, is the height of stupidity. For what is it to us when
we are leaving the
world if another bears our name, when even a son
does not all at once take his
father’s title, and there are
countless others who are called by the same name. Or what support in
old age is he whom you bring up, and who may
die before you, or turn
out a
reprobate? Or at all events when he reaches mature age, you may
seem to him long in dying.
Friends and relatives whom you can
judiciously
love are better and safer heirs than those whom you must
make your heirs whether you like it or not. Indeed, the surest way of
having a good heir is to
ruin your fortune in a good cause while you
live, not to leave the fruit of your labour to be used you know not
how.”
48. When Theophrastus thus discourses, are there any of
us, Christians, whose conversation is in heaven and who daily say4612
“I long to be dissolved, and to
be with
Christ,” whom he does not put to the blush? Shall a
joint-heir of
Christ really long for human heirs? And shall he desire
children and
delight himself in a long line of descendants, who will
perhaps fall into the clutches of
Antichrist, when we read that
4613
| 4613 We hear very
little of the two sons of Moses, Gershom and Eliezer. See Ex. iv. 20, xviii. 3, 1 Chron. xxiii.
14. Their promotion is
nowhere recorded, and Moses appointed a person of another tribe to be
his successor. |
Moses and
4614
Samuel preferred other men to their own
sons, and did not
count as their
children those whom they saw to be
displeasing to
God? When Cicero after
4615
| 4615 b.c. 46. “What grounds for displeasure she had given
him besides her alleged extravagance it is hard to say. His letters to
her during the previous year had been short and rather cold.”
Watson, Select Letters of Cicero, third ed. p. 397. |
divorcing Terentia was requested by
4616
| 4616 Hirtius was the
friend personal and political of Julius Cæsar, and during
Cæsar’s absence in Africa he lived principally at his
Tusculan estate which adjoined Cicero’s villa. Hirtius and Cicero
though opposed to each other in politics were on good terms, and the
former is said to have received lessons in oratory from the latter. |
Hirtius to marry his sister, he
4617
| 4617 But not long
after divorcing Terentia he married Publilia, a young girl of whose
property he had the management, in order to relieve himself from
pecuniary difficulties. She seems to have received little affection
from her husband. Watson, p. 397. |
set the matter altogether on one side,
and said that he could not possibly
devote himself to a
wife and to
philosophy. Meanwhile that excellent partner, who had herself drunk
wisdom at Tully’s
fountains,
married4618
| 4618 This statement
is without authority. See Long’s Article on Sallust in
Smith’s Dict. of Classical Biography. |
Sallust his
enemy, and took for her
third
husband Messala Corvinus, and thus, as it were, passed through
three degrees of eloquence. Socrates had two
wives, Xantippe and Myron,
grand-
daughter of Aristides. They frequently quarrelled, and he was
accustomed to banter them for disagreeing about him, he being the
ugliest of men, with snub nose, bald
forehead,
rough-haired, and
bandy-legged. At last they planned an attack upon him, and having
punished him severely, and put him to flight,
vexed him for a long
time. On one occasion when he opposed Xantippe; who from above was
heaping
abuse upon him, the termagant soused him with dirty
water, but
he only wiped his head and said, “I knew that a shower must
follow such
thunder as that.”
4619
| 4619 Cæcilia
Metella, the third of Sulla’s five wives, had previously been
married to M. Æmilius Scaurus, consul b.c. 115. She fell ill during the celebration of
Sulla’s triumph on account of his victory over Mithridates in 81;
and as her recovery was hopeless, Sulla for religious reasons divorced
her. She soon afterwards died, and Sulla honoured her memory with a
splendid funeral. |
Metella,
consort of L. Sulla the
4620
| 4620 The famous
dictator claimed the name Felix for himself in a speech which he
delivered to the people at the close of the celebration of his triumph,
because he attributed his success in life to the favour of the
gods. |
Fortunate
(except in the matter of his
wife) was
4621
| 4621 But Sulla’s
youth and manhood were disgraced by the most sensual vices. He was
indebted for a considerable portion of his wealth to a courtesan
Nicopolis, and his death in b.c. 78 at the age
of 60 was hastened by his dissolute mode of life. |
openly unchaste. It was the common talk
of Athens, as I learnt in my youthful years when we soon pick up what
is bad, and yet Sulla was in the
dark, and first got to know the
secrets of his household through the
abuse of his
enemies. Cn. Pompey
had an impure
wife4622
| 4622 Pompey, like
Sulla, was married five times. Mucia, his third wife, daughter of Q.
Mucius Scævola, the augur, consul b.c.
95, was divorced by Pompey in 62, and afterwards married M.
Æmilius Scaurus, son of the consul by Cæcilia and thus
stepson of Sulla. |
Mucia, who
was surrounded by
eunuchs from
Pontus and troops of the
countrymen of
Mithridates. Others thought that he knew all and submitted to it; but a
comrade told him during the campaign, and the conqueror of the whole
world was dismayed at the
sad intelligence.
4623
| 4623 Born b.c. 234, died b.c. 149. He
was the great-grandfather of Cato of Utica. |
M. Cato, the Censor, had a
wife
Actoria Paula, a
woman of low origin, fond of drink, violent, and (who
would believe it?) haughty to Cato. I say this for
fear anyone may
suppose that in marrying a
poor woman he has
secured peace. When
4624
Philip king of Macedon, against whom
4625
Demosthenes thundered in his Philippics,
was entering his
bed-
room as usual, his
wife in a passion shut him out. Finding himself
excluded he held his
tongue, and consoled himself for the insult by
reading a tragic poem.
4626
| 4626 Born about b.c. 480 at Leontini in Sicily. He is said to have
lived 105, or even 109 years. He was held in high esteem at Athens,
where he had numerous distinguished pupils and imitators. |
Gorgias the
Rhetorician recited his excellent
treatise on
Concord to the
Greeks,
then at variance among themselves, at Olympia. Whereupon
4627
| 4627 An Athenian
tragic poet, celebrated for his wit. |
Melanthius his
enemy observed:
“Here is a man who
teaches us
concord, and yet could not make
concord between himself his
wife, and
maid-
servant, three persons in
one
house.” The
truth was that his
wife envied the
beauty of the
girl, and drove the purest of men
wild with
daily quarrels. Whole
tragedies of Euripides are censures on
women. Hence Hermione says,
4628
“The
counsels of
evil women
have
beguiled me.” In the semi-barbarous and remote city
4629
| 4629 There were two
cities of this name, Leptis Magna and Parva, in N.
Africa. |
Leptis it is the
custom for a
daughter-in-
law on
4630
| 4630 Or “on
another day,” that is, than the marriage day implied in the
context. |
the second day
to beg the loan of a jar from her mother-in-
law. The latter at once
denies the request, and we see how true was the remark of
4631
| 4631 Terence, Hecyra
II. i. 4. |
Terence, ambiguously expressed on
purpose—“How is this? do all mothers-in-
law hate their
daughters-in-
law?” We read of a certain
Roman noble who, when his
friends found fault with him for having
divorced a
wife,
beautiful,
chaste, and
rich, put out his
foot and said to them, “And the
shoe before you looks new and elegant, yet no one but myself knows
where it pinches.” Herodotus
4632
| 4632 Bk. I. ch. 8.
“Candaules addressed Gyges as follows: ‘Gyges, as I think
you do not believe me when I speak of my wife’s beauty (for the
ears of men are naturally more incredulous than their eyes), you must
contrive to see her naked.’ But he, exclaiming loudly, answered:
‘Sire, what a shocking proposal do you make, bidding me behold my
queen naked! With her clothes a woman puts off her
modesty,’” etc. |
tells
us that a
woman puts off her modesty with her
clothes. And our own
comic
poet4633
| 4633 Perhaps
Terence, Phormio I. iii. 21. |
thinks the man fortunate who
has never been
married. Why should I refer to Pasiphaë,
4634
| 4634 For these
legends, see Classical Dict. |
Clytemnestra, and Eriphyle, the first
of whom, the
wife of a king and swimming in
pleasure, is said to have
lusted for a bull, the second to have
killed her:
husband for the sake
of an
adulterer, the third to have
betrayed Amphiaraus, and to have
preferred a
gold necklace to the welfare of her
husband. In all the
bombast of tragedy and the
overthrow of
houses, cities, and
kingdoms,
it is the
wives and
concubines who stir up
strife.
Parents take up arms
against their
children: unspeakable banquets are served: and on account
of the rape of one
wretched woman Europe and
Asia are involved in a ten
years’
war. We read of some who were
divorced the day after they
were
married, and immediately
married again. Both
husbands are to
blame, both he who was so soon dissatisfied, and he who was so soon
pleased. Epicurus the patron of
pleasure (though
4635
| 4635 The most
distinguished disciple and the intimate friend of Epicurus. His
philosophy appears to have been of a more sensual kind than that of his
master. He made perfect happiness to consist in having a
well-constituted body. He died b.c. 277 in the
53rd year of his age, 7 years before Epicurus. |
Metrodorus his
disciple married
Leontia) says that a
wise man can seldom marry, because
marriage has
many drawbacks. And as
riches, honours, bodily
health, and other things
which we call indifferent, are neither good nor bad, but stand as it
were midway, and become good and bad according to the use and issue, so
wives stand on the border line of good and
ill. It is, moreover, a
serious matter for a
wise man to be in doubt whether he is going to
marry a good or a bad
woman.
4636
| 4636 Chrysippus
(b.c. 280–207) the Stoic philosopher,
born at Soli in Cilicia. He opposed the prevailing scepticism and
maintained the possibility of attaining certain knowledge. It was said
of him “that if Chrysippus had not existed the Porch
(i.e., Stoicism) could not have been.” He is reported to
have seldom written less than 500 lines a-day, and to have left behind
him 705 works. |
Chrysippus
ridiculously maintains that a
wise man should marry, that he may not
outrage
Jupiter4637
| 4637 That is Zeus,
regarded as presiding over marriages and the tutelary god of races or
families. |
Gamelius
and Genethlius. For upon that principle the Latins would not marry at
all, since they have no
Jupiter who presides over
marriage. But if, as
he thinks, the
life of men is determined by the names of gods, whoever
chooses to sit will offend
Jupiter4638
| 4638 Literally,
“Jupiter who causes to stand”: hence Jerome’s play
upon the word. Jupiter Stator was the god regarded as supporting,
preserving, etc. Cic., Cat. I. 13, 31—“quem (sc. Jovem)
statorem hujus urbis atque imperii vere nominamus.” |
Stator.
49. Aristotle and Plutarch and our Seneca have written
treatises on matrimony, out of which we have already made some extracts
and now add a few more. “The love of beauty is the forgetting of
reason and the near neighbour of madness; a foul blot little in keeping
with a sound mind. It confuses counsel, breaks high and generous
spirits, draws away men from great thoughts to mean ones; it makes men
querulous, ill-tempered, foolhardy, cruelly imperious, servile
flatterers, good for nothing, at last not even for love itself. For
although in the intensity of passion it burns like a raging fire, it
wastes much time through suspicions, tears, and complaints: it begets
hatred of itself, and at last hates itself.” The course of love
is laid bare in Plato’s Phædrus from beginning to end, and
Lysias explains all its drawbacks—how it is led not by reason,
but by frenzy, and in particular is a harsh gaoler over lovely wives.
Seneca, too, relates that he knew an accomplished man who before going
out used to tie his wife’s
garter upon his breast, and could not bear to be absent from her for a
quarter of an hour; and this pair would never take a drink unless
husband and wife alternately put their lips to the cup; and they did
other things just as absurd in the extravagant outbursts of their warm
but blind affection. Their love was of honourable birth, but it grew
out of all proportion. And it makes no difference how honourable may be
the cause of a man’s insanity. Hence4639
| 4639 The greater
number of manuscripts read Sextus, an alternative name for the
same person. Jerome in his version of the Chronicon of Eusebius
speaks of “Xystus a Pythagorean philosopher” who flourished
at the time of Christ’s birth; but there is great difficulty in
establishing the identity of the author of the “Sentences.”
See also the Prolegomena to Rufinus who translated the Sentences of
Xystus, in Vol. III. of this Series. |
Xystus in his Sentences tells us that
“He who too ardently
loves his own
wife is an
adulterer.”
It is disgraceful to
love another man’s
wife at all, or
one’s own too much. A
wise man ought to
love his
wife with
judgment, not with passion. Let a man govern his voluptuous impulses,
and not
rush headlong into intercourse. There is nothing blacker than
to
love a
wife as if she were an adulteress. Men who say they have
contracted
marriage and are bringing up
children, for the good of their
country and of the race, should at least
imitate the brutes, and not
destroy their
offspring in the
womb; nor should they appear in the
character of
lovers, but of
husbands. In some cases
marriage has grown
out of
adultery: and, shameful to relate! men have tried to
teach their
wives chastity after having taken their chastity away. Marriages of
that sort are quickly dissolved when
lust is satiated. The first
allurement gone, the charm is lost. What shall I say, says Seneca, of
the
poor men who in numbers are bribed to take the name of
husband in
order to evade the
laws promulgated against bachelors? How can he who
is
married under such conditions be a
guide to
morality,
teach
chastity, and maintain the
authority of a
husband? It is the saying of
a very
learned man, that chastity must be
preserved at all
costs, and
that when it is lost all
virtue falls to the ground. This holds the
primacy of all
virtues in
woman. This it is that makes up for a
wife’s
poverty, enhances her
riches,
redeems her deformity, gives
grace to her
beauty; it makes her act in a way worthy of her
forefathers whose
blood it does not taint with
bastard offspring; of
her
children, who through it have no need to blush for their mother, or
to be in doubt about their
father; and above all, of herself, since it
defends her from external violation. There is no greater calamity
connected with
captivity than to be the victim of another’s
lust.
The consulship sheds lustre upon men; eloquence gives
eternal renown;
military
glory and a
triumph immortalise an obscure
family. Many are
the spheres ennobled by splendid ability. The
virtue of
woman is, in a
special sense,
purity. It was this that made
4640
| 4640 See note above, p.
382. |
Lucretia the equal of Brutus, if it did
not make her his superior, since Brutus learnt from a
woman the
impossibility of being a
slave. It was this that made
4641
| 4641 Daughter of P.
Scipio Africanus, and wife of Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, censor b.c. 169. The people erected a statue to her with
the inscription “Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.” |
Cornelia a fit match for Gracchus, and
4642
Porcia for a second Brutus.
4643
| 4643 Wife of
Tarquinius Priscus. |
Tanaquil is better known than her
husband. His name, like the names of many other kings, is lost in the
mists of
antiquity. She, through a
virtue rare among
women, is too
deeply rooted in the
hearts of all ages for her memory ever to
perish.
Let my
married sisters copy the examples of
4644
Theano,
4645
| 4645 Cleobuline, or
Cleobule, was celebrated for her riddles in hexameter verse. One on the
subject of the year runs thus—“A father has 12 children,
and each of these 30 daughters, on one side white, and on the other
side black, and though immortal they all die.” |
Cleobuline, Gorgente,
4646
| 4646 Timoclia was a
woman of Thebes, whose house at the capture of the city in b.c. 335 was broken into and pillaged by the soldiery. She
was herself violated by the commander, whom she afterwards contrived to
push into a well. |
Timoclia, the
4647
Claudias and Cornelias; and when they
find the
Apostle conceding second
marriage to depraved
women, they will
read that before the
light of our
religion shone upon the
world wives
of one
husband ever held high rank among matrons, that by their
hands
the
sacred rites of Fortuna
4648
| 4648 The epithet is
said to have been given to the goddess at the time when Coriolanus was
prevented by the entreaties of the women from destroying
Rome. |
Muliebris
were performed, that a
priest or
4649
Flamen
twice
4650
| 4650 Comp. Tertullian
De Monogamia, last chapter—“Fortunæ, inquit,
muliebri coronam non imponit, nisi univira…Pontifex Maximus et
Flaminica (the wife of a Flamen) nubunt semel.” |
married was unknown, that the
high-priests of Athens to this day
4651
| 4651 See Origen,
Contra Celsum, Bk. VII. The water hemlock, or cowbane, is the
variety referred to. |
emasculate
themselves by drinking hemlock, and once they have been drawn in to the
pontificate, cease to be men.
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