Book
II.
Jerome answers the second, third, and fourth
propositions of Jovinianus.
I. (c. 1–4). That those who have become regenerate
cannot be overthrown by the devil, Jerome (c. 1) puts it that they
cannot be tempted by the devil. He quotes 1 John i. 8–ii. 2, as shewing that faithful men can be
tempted and sin and need an advocate. The expressions (3) in Heb. vi. as to those who crucify the Son of God
afresh do not apply to ordinary sins after baptism, as supposed by
Montanus and Novatus. The epistles to the Seven Churches show that the
lapsed may return. The Angels, and even our Lord Himself, (4) could be
tempted.
II. (c. 5–17). That there is no difference
(morally) between one who fasts and one who takes food with
thanksgiving. Jovinian has quoted (5) many texts of Scripture to show
that God has made animals for men’s food. But (6) there are many
other uses of animals besides food. And there are many warnings like
1 Cor. vi. 13, as to the danger arising from food.
There are among the heathen (7) many instances of abstinence. They
recognize (8) the evil of sensual allurements, and often, like Crates
the Theban, (9) have cast away what would tempt them; the senses, they
teach, (10) should be subject to reason; and, that (11) except for
athletes (Christians do not want to be like Milo of Crotona) bread and
water suffice. Horace (12), Xenophon and other eminent Greeks (13), the
Essenes and the Brahmans (14), as well as philosophers like Diogenes,
testify to the value of abstinence. The Old Testament stories (15) of
Esau’s pottage, of the lusting of Israel for the flesh-pots of
Egypt, and those in the New Testament of Anna, Cornelius, &c.,
commend abstinence. If some heretics inculcate fasting (16) in such a
way as to despise the gifts of God, and weak Christians are not to be
judged for their use of flesh, those who seek the higher life (17) will
find a help in abstinence.
III. (c. 18–34). The fourth proposition of
Jovinianus, that all who are saved will have equal reward, is refuted
(19) by the various yields of thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold in the
parable of the sower, by (20) the “stars differing in
glory” of 1 Cor. xv.
41. It is strange (21) to
find the advocate of self-indulgence now claiming equality to the
saints. But (22) as there were differences in Ezekiel between cattle
and cattle, so in St. Paul between those who built gold or stubble on
the one foundation. The differences of gifts (23), of punishments (24),
of guilt (25), as in Pilate and the Chief Priests, of the produce of
the good seed (26), of the mansions promised in heaven (27–29),
of the judgment upon sins both in the church and in Scripture
(30–31), of those called at different times to the vineyard (32)
are arguments for the diversity of rewards. The parable of the talents
(33) holds out as rewards differences of station, and so does the
church (34) in its different orders.
Jerome now recapitulates (35) and appeals (36)against
the licentious views of Jovinianus, which have already induced many
virgins to break their vows; and which, as the new Roman heresy (37),
he calls upon the Imperial City (38) to reject.
1. The second proposition of Jovinianus is that the
baptized cannot be tempted4652
| 4652 This, according
to i. 3, is “cannot be overthrown.” |
by the
devil.
And to
escape the imputation of
folly in saying this, he adds:
“But if any are tempted, it only shows that they were
baptized
with
water, not with the Spirit, as we read was the case with
Simon
Magus.” Hence it is that John says,
4653
“Whosoever is begotten of
God
doeth no
sin, because his
seed abideth in him: and he cannot
sin,
because he is begotten of
God. In this the
children of
God are
manifest, and the
children of the
Devil.” And at the end of the
Epistle,
4654
“Whosoever is begotten of
God sinneth not; but his being begotten of
God keepeth him, and the
evil one toucheth him not.”
2. This would be a real difficulty and one for ever
incapable of solution were it not solved by the witness of John
himself, who immediately goes on to say,4655
“My little
children,
guard
yourselves from
idols.” If everyone that is
born of
God sinneth
not, and cannot be tempted by the
devil, how is it that he bids them
beware of
temptation? Again in the same
Epistle we read:
4656
“If we say that we have no
sins,
we
deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us. If we confess our
sins, he is
faithful and just to
forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us
from all
unrighteousness. If we say that we have not
sinned, we make
him a
liar, and his word is not in us.” I suppose that John was
baptized and was writing to the
baptized: I
imagine too that all
sin is
of the
devil. Now John confesses himself a
sinner, and hopes for
forgiveness of
sins after
baptism. My
friend Jovinianus says,
4657
| 4657 Is. lxv. 5. Quoted from memory. The LXX and Vulg.
have like A.V. and Rev., “Come not near me.” |
“Touch me not, for I am
clean.” What then? Does the
Apostle contradict himself? By no
means. In the same passage he gives his reason for thus speaking:
4658
“My little
children, these
things
write I unto you, that ye may not
sin. But if any man
sin, we
have an advocate with the
Father,
Jesus Christ the
righteous: and he is
the
propitiation for our
sins; and not for ours only, but also for the
whole
world. And hereby know we that we know him, if we keep his
commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his
commandments, is a
liar, and the
truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth
his word, in him verily hath the
love of
God been perfected. Hereby
know we that we are in him: he that saith he abideth in him ought
himself also to
walk even as he walked.” My reason for telling
you, little
children, that everyone who is
born of
God sinneth not, is
that you may not
sin, and that you
may know that so long as you
sin not you
abide in the
birth which
God
has given you. Yea, they who
abide in that
birth cannot
sin.
4659
“For what
communion hath
light
with
darkness? Or
Christ with Belial?” As day is distinct from
night, so
righteousness and
unrighteousness,
sin and good works,
Christ
and
Antichrist cannot blend. If we give
Christ a lodging-place in our
hearts, we banish the
devil from thence. If we
sin and the
devil enter
through the
gate of
sin,
Christ will immediately withdraw. Hence
David
after
sinning says:
4660
“Restore
unto me the
joy of thy
salvation,” that is, the
joy which he had
lost by
sinning.
4661
“He who
saith, I know him, and keepeth not his
commandments, is a
liar, and the
truth is not in him.”
Christ is called the
truth:
4662
“I am the way, the
truth, and the
life.” In
vain do we make our
boast in him whose
commandments we
keep not. To him that knoweth what is good, and doeth it not, it is
sin.
4663
“As the body apart from the
spirit is dead, even so
faith apart from works is dead.” And we
must not think it a great matter to know the only
God, when even
devils
believe and tremble. “He that saith he abideth in him ought
himself also to
walk even as he walked.” Our opponent may choose
whichever of the two he likes; we give him his choice. Does he
abide in
Christ, or not? If he
abide, let him then
walk as
Christ walked. But if
there is
4664
| 4664 Jerome is
perhaps hinting at the opinions of Jovinianus, that there was no other
distinction between men than the grand division into righteous and
wicked, and drawing from this the inference that whoever had been truly
baptized had nothing further to gain by progress in the Christian
life. |
rashness in professing to copy
the
virtues of our
Lord, he does not
abide in
Christ, for he does not
walk as did
Christ.
4665
“He did
not
sin, neither was
guile found in his mouth: when he was
reviled, he
reviled not again, and as a
lamb is
dumb before its shearer, so opened
he not his mouth.” To Him came the
prince of this
world, and
found nothing in Him: although He had done no
sin,
God made Him
sin for
us. But we, according to the
Epistle of James,
4666
“all
stumble in many
things,” and
4667
“no one
is pure from
sin, no not if his
life be but a day long.”
4668
For who will
boast “that he has
a
clean heart? or who will be sure that he is pure from
sin?” And
we are held
guilty after the similitude of
Adam’s
transgression.
Hence
David says,
4669
“Behold,
I was shapen in
iniquity, and in
sin did my mother conceive me.”
And the
blessed Job,
4670
“Though I
be
righteous my mouth will speak
wickedness, and though I be
perfect, I
shall be found
perverse. If I
wash myself with
snow water and make my
hands never so
clean, yet wilt thou plunge me in the
ditch and mine own
clothes shall
abhor me.” But that we may not utterly
despair and
think that if we
sin after
baptism we cannot be
saved, he immediately
checks the tendency:
4671
“And if
any man
sin, we have an advocate with the
Father,
Jesus Christ the
righteous, and he is the
propitiation for our
sins. And not for ours
only, but also for the whole
world.” He addresses this to
baptized believers, and he
promises them the
Lord as an advocate for
their offences. He does not say: If you fall into
sin, you have an
advocate with the
Father,
Christ, and He is the
propitiation for your
sins: you might then say that he was addressing those whose
baptism had
been
destitute of the true
faith: but what he says is this, “We
have an advocate with the
Father,
Jesus Christ, and he is the
propitiation for our
sins.” And not only for the
sins of John and
his contemporaries, but for those of the whole
world. Now in “the
whole
world” are included
apostles and all the
faithful, and a
clear
proof is established that
sin after
baptism is possible. It is
useless for us to have an advocate
Jesus Christ, if
sin be
impossible.
3. The apostle Peter, to whom it was said,4672
“He that is
bathed needeth not
to
wash again,” and
4673
“Thou
art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my
Church,” through
fear of a
maid-
servant denied Him. Our
Lord himself says,
4674
“
Simon,
Simon, behold
Satan
asked to have you, that he might sift you as
wheat. But I made
supplication for thee, that thy
faith fail not.” And in the same
place, “Watch and
pray, that ye enter not into
temptation: the
spirit indeed is willing, but the
flesh is
weak.” If you reply
that this was said before the Passion, we certainly say after the
Passion, in the
Lord’s prayer,
4675
“
Forgive us our
debts, as we also
forgive our
debtors; and lead
us not into
temptation, but
deliver us from the
evil one.” If we
do not
sin after
baptism, why do we ask that we may be
forgiven our
sins, which were already
forgiven in
baptism? Why do we
pray that we
may not enter into
temptation, and that we may be
delivered from the
evil one, if the
devil cannot tempt those who are
baptized? The case is
different if this prayer
belongs to the Catechumens, and is not adapted
to
faithful Christians.
Paul, the chosen
vessel,
4676
chastised his body, and brought it
into subjection, lest after
preaching to others he himself should be
found a
reprobate, and
4677
he tells
that there was given to him “a
thorn in the
flesh, a messenger of
Satan to buffet” him. And to
the Corinthians he writes:
4678
“I
fear, lest by any means, as the
serpent beguiled Eve in his
craftiness,
your minds should be
corrupted from the simplicity that is toward
Christ.” And elsewhere:
4679
“But to
whom ye
forgive anything, I
forgive also: for what I also have
forgiven, if I have
forgiven anything, for your sakes have I
forgiven
it in the person of
Christ: that no
advantage may be
gained over us by
Satan: for we are not ignorant of his
devices.” And again:
4680
“There hath no
temptation taken
you, but such as man can bear; but
God is
faithful, who will not
suffer
you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the
temptation
make also the way of
escape, that ye may be able to
endure it.”
And,
4681
“Let him that thinketh he
standeth, take heed lest he fall.” And to the Galatians:
4682
“Ye were running well; who did
hinder you that ye should not obey the
truth?” And elsewhere:
4683
“We would fain have come unto
you, I
Paul once and again; and
Satan hindered us.” And to the
married he says:
4684
“Be
together again, that
Satan tempt you not because of your
incontinency.” And again:
4685
“But I say,
walk by the Spirit
and ye shall not fulfil the
lust of the
flesh. For the
flesh lusteth
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
flesh; for these are
contrary the one to the other: that ye may not do the things that ye
would.” We are a compound of the two, and must
endure the
strife
of the two substances. And to the Ephesians:
4686
“Our wrestling is not against
flesh and
blood, but against the
principalities, against the powers,
against the
world-
rulers of this
darkness, against the
spiritual hosts
of
wickedness in the heavenly places.” Does any one think that we
are
safe, and that it is right to fall
asleep when once we have been
baptized? And so, too, in the
epistle to the Hebrews:
4687
“For as touching those who
were once enlightened and
tasted of the heavenly
gift, and were made
partakers of the Holy
Ghost, and
tasted the good word of
God, and the
powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is
impossible to
renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the
Son of
God afresh, and put him to an open
shame.” Surely we
cannot deny that they have been
baptized who have been illuminated, and
have
tasted the heavenly
gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy
Spirit, and have
tasted the good word of
God. But if the
baptized
cannot
sin, how is it now that the
Apostle says, “And have fallen
away”?
4688
| 4688 Various
dates, ranging between a.d. 126 and a.d. 173, are assigned to the origin of Montanism.
In addition to the tenet, that the church has no power to remit sin
after baptism (though the power was claimed for the Montanistic
prophets) and that some sins exclude for ever from the communion of the
saints on earth, although the mercy of God may be extended to them
hereafter, Montanus held second marriages to be no better than
adultery, proscribed military service and secular life in general,
denounced profane learning and amusements of every kind, advocated
extreme simplicity of female dress, practised frequent and severe
fasting, and inculcated the most rigorous asceticism. The sect produced
a great effect on the church and lasted until the sixth century. As is
well known, Tertullian in middle life lapsed into Montanism, and he was
the most distinguished of its champions. Montanism has been described
as an anticipation of the mediaeval system of Rome. |
Montanus
and
4689
| 4689 The
founder of the schism which afterwards bore the name of Novatian
was Novatus, a presbyter of Carthage who went to Rome (about a.d. 250) and there co-operated with Novatianus, one
of the most distinguished of the clergy of that city. The Novatianists,
whose doctrines were near akin in many respects to those of Montanists,
assumed the name of Cathari, or Puritans. |
Novatus would smile at this, for they
contend that it is
impossible to
renew again through repentance those
who have crucified to themselves the Son of
God, and put Him to an open
shame. He therefore corrects this mistake by saying:
4690
“But,
beloved, we are
persuaded
better things of you, and things that accompany
salvation, though we
thus speak; for
God is not
unrighteous to
forget your
work and the
love
which ye shewed towards his name, in that ye
ministered unto the
Saints, and still do
minister.” And truly the
unrighteousness of
God would be great, if He merely
punished sin, and did not welcome good
works. I have so spoken, says the
Apostle, to withdraw you from your
sins, and to make you more careful through
fear of
despair. But,
beloved, I am
persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany
salvation. For it is not accordant with the
righteousness of
God to
forget good works, and the fact that you have
ministered and do
minister to the
Saints for His name’s sake, and to remember
sins
only. The
Apostle James also, knowing that the
baptized can be tempted,
and fall of their own free choice, says:
4691
“
Blessed is the man that endureth
temptation: for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the
crown
of
life, which the
Lord promised to them that
love him.” And that
we may not think that we are tempted by
God, as we read in Genesis
Abraham was, he adds: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am
tempted of
God: for
God cannot be tempted with
evil, and He Himself
tempteth no man. But each man is tempted when he is drawn away by his
own
lust and
enticed. Then the
lust, when it hath conceived, beareth
sin: and the
sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth
death.”
God created us with free will, and we are not forced by necessity
either to
virtue or to vice. Otherwise, if there be necessity, there is
no
crown. As in good works it is
God who brings them to
perfection, for
it is not of him that willeth, nor
of him that runneth, but of
God that pitieth and gives us help that we
may be able to reach the
goal: so in things
wicked and
sinful, the
seeds within us give the impulse, and these are brought to maturity by
the
devil. When he sees that we are
building upon the
foundation of
Christ, hay,
wood,
stubble, then he applies the match. Let us then
build
gold,
silver, costly
stones, and he will not venture to tempt us:
although even thus there is not sure and
safe possession. For the
lion
lurks in ambush to
slay the
innocent.
4692
“Potters’
vessels are
proved by the
furnace, and just men by the
trial of
tribulation.”
And in another place it is written:
4693
“My son, when thou comest to
serve the
Lord, prepare thyself for
temptation.” Again, the same
James says:
4694
“Be ye doers of the word,
and not hearers only. For if any one is a hearer of the word, and not a
doer, he is like unto a man beholding his
natural face in a mirror: for
he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what
manner of man he was.” It was useless to
warn them to add works
to
faith, if they could not
sin after
baptism. He tells us that
4695
“whosoever shall keep the whole
law, and yet
stumble in one point, he is become
guilty of all.”
Which of us is without
sin?
4696
“
God
hath shut up all unto
disobedience, that he might have
mercy upon
all.” Peter also says:
4697
“The
Lord knows how to
deliver the godly out of
temptation.” And
concerning false
teachers:
4698
“These
are springs without
water, and mists driven by a
storm; for whom the
blackness of
darkness hath been reserved. For, uttering
proud words of
vanity, they
entice in the
lusts of the
flesh, by lasciviousness, those
who had just
escaped, and have turned back to error.” Does not
the
Apostle in these words seem to you to have depicted the new party
of ignorance? For, as it were, they open the
fountains of
knowledge and
yet have no
water: they
promise a shower of
doctrine like prophetic
clouds which have been visited by the
truth of
God, and are driven by
the
storms of
devils and vices. They speak great things, and their talk
is nothing but
pride:
4699
“But
every one is
unclean with
God who is lifted up in his own
heart.”
Like those who had just
escaped from their
sins, they
return to
their own error, and
persuade men to luxury, and to the
delights of
eating and the gratification of the
flesh. For who is not
glad to hear
them say: “Let us eat and drink, and
reign for ever”? The
wise and
prudent they call
corrupt, but pay more attention to the
honey-tongued. John the
apostle, or rather the Saviour in the person of
John, writes thus to the
angel of the
Church of
Ephesus:
4700
“I know thy works and thy toil and
patience, and that thou didst bear for my name’s sake, and hast
not grown weary. But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave
thy first
love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and
repent, and do the first works; or else I will come to thee, and will
move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou
repent.”
Similarly He urges the other
churches, Smyrna,
Pergamos, Thyatira,
Sardis,
Philadelphia,
Laodicea, to repentance, and threatens them
unless they return to the former works. And in Sardis He says He has a
few who have not
defiled their
garments, and they shall
walk with Him
in white, for they are worthy. But they to whom He says:
“Remember from whence thou art fallen”; and, “Behold
the
devil is about to cast some of you into
prison, that ye may be
tried”; and, “I know where thou dwellest, even where
Satan’s
throne is”; and, “Remember how thou hast
received, and didst hear, and keep it, and
repent,” and so on,
were of course
believers, and
baptized, who once stood, but fell
through
sin.
4. I delayed for a little while the production of proofs
from the Old Testament, because, wherever the Old Testament is against
them they are accustomed to cry out that4701
the
Law and the
Prophets were until
John. But who does not know that under the other dispensation of
God
all the
saints of past times were of equal merit with
Christians at the
present day? As
Abraham in days gone by pleased
God in wedlock, so
virgins now please him in perpetual
virginity. He served the
Law and
his own times; let us now serve the
Gospel and our times,
4702
upon whom the ends of the ages have
come.
David the chosen one, the man after
God’s own
heart, who
had performed all His
pleasure, and who in a certain psalm had said,
4703
“
Judge me, O
Lord, for I have
walked in mine
integrity: I have trusted also in the
Lord and shall not
slide.
Examine me, O
Lord, and
prove me; try my reins and my
heart,” even he was afterwards tempted by the
devil; and
repenting of his
sin said,
4704
“Have
mercy upon me, O
God, according to thy
loving-
kindness.” He would
have a great
sin blotted out by great
loving-
kindness.
Solomon,
beloved
of the
Lord, and to whom
God had twice
revealed Himself, because he
loved women forsook the
love of
God. It is related in the
4705
Book of Days that Manasses the
wicked
king was restored after the Babylonish
captivity to his former rank.
And
Josiah, a holy man,
4706
| 4706 2 Kings xxiii. 29 sq. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20 sq. |
was slain by the king of Egypt on the
plain of Megiddo.
4707
Joshua also,
the son of Josedech and high-
priest, although he was a type of our
Saviour Who bore our
sins, and united to Himself a
church of
alien
birth from among the Gentiles, is nevertheless, according to the letter
of Scripture, represented in
filthy garments after he attained to the
priesthood, and with the
devil standing at his right
hand; and white
raiment is afterwards restored to him. It is needless to tell how
Moses
and
Aaron4708
| 4708 Numb. xx. 13; Ps. cvi. 32. |
offended
God at the
water of
strife, and did not enter the
land of
promise. For the
blessed Job
relates that even the
angels and every creature can
sin.
4709
“Shall
mortal man,” he says,
“be just before
God? Shall a man be spotless in his works? If he
putteth no
trust in his
servants, and chargeth his
angels with
folly,
how much more them that dwell in
houses of
clay,” amongst whom
are we, and made of the same
clay too.
4710
“The
life of man is a
warfare upon
earth.”
4711
| 4711 Jerome blends two
passages, Is. xiv. 12 (in which the Sept. reading is
“that sendest to;” R.V. “didst lay low”) and
Ezek. xxviii. 13 sq. In the passage from Isaiah the king
of Babylon is compared to Lucifer, i.e. the shining one, the
morning star, whose movements the Babylonians had been the first to
record. See Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, p.
178, and Cheyne’s Isaiah. The subject of Ezekiel’s
prophecy is the Prince of Tyre. |
Lucifer fell
who was sending to all
nations, and he who was
nurtured in a
paradise
of
delight as one of the twelve precious
stones, was
wounded and went
down to
hell from the mount of
God. Hence the Saviour says in the
Gospel:
4712
“I beheld
Satan falling as
lightning from
heaven.” If he fell who stood on so sublime a
height, who may not fall? If there are falls in
heaven, how much more
on
earth! And yet though
Lucifer be fallen (the old
serpent after his
fall),
4713
“his
strength is in his
loins, and his force is in the muscles of his
belly. The great
trees
are
overshadowed by him, and he sleepeth beside the
reed, the
rush, and
the sedge.”
4714
He is king
over all things that are in the waters—that is to say in the seat
of
pleasure and luxury, of propagation of
children, and of the
fertilisation of the
marriage bed.
4715
| 4715 Job xli. 13 sq. R.V. for the latter part of the
verse has “Round about his teeth is terror, his strong scales are
his pride.” Jerome’s words are not found in the existing
Septuagint. |
“For
who can strip off his outer
garment? Who can open the
doors of his
face?
Nations fatten upon him, and the
tribes of Phenicia divide
him.” And lest haply the reader in his
secret thought might
imagine that those
tribes of Phenicia and peoples of
Ethiopia only are
meant by those to whom the
dragon was given for
food, we immediately
find a reference to those who are crossing the
sea of this
world, and
are hastening to reach the
haven of
salvation:
4716
| 4716 The Septuagint
omits much in this portion of the Book of Job. |
“His head stands in the
ships of
the fishermen like an anvil that cannot be wearied:
4717
he counteth
iron as straw, and
brass
as rotten
wood. And all the
gold of the
sea under him is as mire. He
maketh the
deep to boil like a
pot: he values the
sea like a
pot of
ointment, and the
blackness of the
deep as a captive. He beholdeth
everything that is high.” And my
friend Jovinianus thinks he can
gain an easy mastery over him. Why speak of holy men and
angels, who,
being creatures of
God, are of course capable of
sin? He
dared to tempt
the Son of
God, and though smitten through and through with our
Lord’s first and second answer, nevertheless
raised his head, and
when thrice
wounded, withdrew only for a time, and deferred rather than
removed the
temptation. And we flatter ourselves on the ground of our
baptism, which though it put away the
sins of the past, cannot keep us
for the time to come, unless the
baptized keep their
hearts with all
diligence.
5. At length we have arrived at the question of food,
and are confronted by our third difficulty. “All things were
created to serve for the use of mortal men.” And as man, a
rational animal, in a sense the owner and tenant of the world, is
subject to God, and worships his Creator, so all things living were
created either for the food of men, or for clothing, or for tilling the
earth, or conveying the fruits thereof, or to be the companions of man,
and hence, because they are man’s4718
| 4718 That is,
deriving jumenta from juvo. The derivation, however, is
from jungo. |
helpers, they have their name
jumenta.
4719
‘What is
man,’ says
David, ‘that thou art mindful of him? And the
son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him but little
lower than the
angels, and crownest him with
glory and honour. Thou
madest him to have
dominion over the works of thine
hands; thou hast
put all things under his
feet: all
sheep and
oxen, yea, and the
beasts
of the
field: the
fowl of the
air, and the
fish of the
sea, whatsoever
passeth through the paths of the
seas.’ Granted, he says, that
the
ox was
created for ploughing, the
horse for riding, the
dog for
watching,
goats for their
milk,
sheep for their fleeces. What is the
use of
swine if we may not eat their
flesh? of roes, stags,
fallow-deer, boars, hares, and such like game? of geese,
wild and tame?
of
wild ducks and
4720
| 4720 The Italian
beccafico. |
fig-peckers? of
woodcocks? of coots? of thrushes? Why do hens
run about our
houses? If
they are not eaten, all these creatures were
created by
God for nothing. But what need is there of
argument when Scripture clearly
teaches that every moving creature,
like
herbs and vegetables, were given to us for
food, and the
Apostle
cries aloud
4721
‘All things are
clean to
the
clean, and nothing is to be
rejected, if it be received with
thanksgiving,’ and
4722
tells us that
men will come in the last days, forbidding to marry, and to eat meats,
which
God created for use? The
Lord himself was called by the
Pharisees
a
wine-bibber and a glutton, the
friend of
publicans and
sinners,
because he did not decline the invitation of Zacchæus to dinner,
and went to the
marriage-
feast. But it is a different matter if, as you
may foolishly
contend, he went to the dinner intending to fast, and
after the manner of
deceivers said, I eat this, not that; I do not
drink the
wine which I
created out of
water. He did not make
water, but
wine, the type of his
blood. After the resurrection he ate a
fish and
part of a
honey-comb, not sesame nuts and service-berries. The
apostle,
Peter, did not wait like a
Jew for the
stars to peep, but went upon the
house-top to
dine at the sixth hour.
Paul in the
ship broke
bread, not
dried
figs. When Timothy’s
stomach was out of order, he advised
him to drink
wine, not perry. In abstaining from meats they please
their own fancy: as though superstitious Gentiles did not observe the
4723
| 4723 Castum.
Another reading is Cossum i.e. wood-worms, which were considered
a delicacy in Pontus and Phrygia. The reading Castum is
supported by Tert., De Iejun. cap. 16: In nostris xerophagiis
blasphemias ingerens. Casto Isidis et Cybeles eos adæquas. Compare
Arnob. Bk. V., and Jerome’s Letter cvii. ad Lætam c. 10, and
below c. 7. |
rites of
abstinence connected with
the Mother of the Gods and with Isis.”
6. I will follow in detail the views now expounded, and
before I come to Scripture and show by it that fasting is pleasing to
God, and chastity accepted by him, I will meet philosophic argument
with argument, and will prove that we are not followers of Empedocles
and Pythagoras, who on account of their doctrine of the transmigration
of souls think nothing which lives and moves should be eaten, and look
upon him who fells a fir-tree or an oak as equally guilty with the
parricide or the poisoner: but that we worship our Creator Who made all
things for the use of man. And as the ox was created for ploughing, the
horse for riding, dogs for watching, goats for milk, sheep for their
wool: so it was with swine and stags, and roes and hares, and other
animals: but the immediate purpose of their creation was not that they
might serve for food, but for other uses of men. For if everything that
moves and lives was made for food, and prepared for the stomach, let my
opponents tell me why elephants, lions, leopards, and wolves were
created; why vipers, scorpions, bugs, lice, and fleas; why the vulture,
the eagle, the crow, the hawk; why whales, dolphins, seals, and small
snails were created. Which of us ever eats the flesh of a lion, a
viper, a vulture, a stork, a kite, or the worms that crawl upon our
shores? As then these have their proper uses, so may we say that other
beasts, fishes, birds, were created not for eating, but for medicine.
In short, to how many uses the flesh of vipers, from which we make our
antidotes against poison, may be applied, physicians know well. Ivory
dust is an ingredient in many remedies. Hyena’s gall restores
brightness to the eyes, and its dung and that of dogs cures gangrenous
wounds. And (it may seem strange to the reader) Galen asserts in his
treatise on Simples, that human dung is of service in a multitude of
cases. Naturalists say that snake-skin, boiled in oil, gives wonderful
relief in ear-ache. What to the uninitiated seems so useless as a bug?
Yet, suppose a leech to have fastened on the throat, as soon as the
odour of a bug is inhaled the leech is vomited out, and difficulty in
urinating is relieved by the same application. As for the fat of pigs,
geese, fowls, and pheasants, how useful they are is told in all medical
works, and if you read these books you will see there that the vulture
has as many curative properties as it has limbs. Peacock’s dung
allays the inflammation of gout. Cranes, storks, eagle’s gall,
hawk’s blood, the ostrich, frogs, chameleons, swallow’s
dung and flesh—in what diseases these are suitable remedies, I
could tell if it were my purpose to discuss bodily ailments and their
cure. If you think proper you may read Aristotle and4724
Theophrastus in prose, or
4725
| 4725 That is, of Side
in Pamphylia. He lived in the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius,
a.d. 117–161. Only two fragments remain
of his Greek poem in forty-two books. |
Marcellus of Side, and our
4726
| 4726 He appears to
be Flavius the Grammarian to whom reference is made in the Book on
Illustrious Men, chap. 80:—Firmianus, qui et Lactantius,
Arnobii discipulus, sub Diocletiano principe accitus cum Flavio
grammatico, cujus de Medicinalibus versu compositi exstant libri,
etc. |
Flavius, who
discourse on these
subjects in hexameter verse; the
4727
| 4727 Born a.d. 23. His Historia Naturalis embraces
astronomy, meteorology, geography, mineralogy, zoölogy, and
botany, and comprises according to the author’s own account
20,000 matters of importance drawn from 2,000 volumes. |
second
Pliny also, and
4728
| 4728 A native of
Cilicia, who probably lived in the second century of the Christian era.
He was a Greek physician and wrote a treatise on Materia Medica,
in 5 books, which is still extant. |
Dioscorides, and others, both
naturalists and
physicians, who assign to every
herb, every
stone,
every
animal whether reptile,
bird, or
fish, its own use in the art of
which they treat. So then when you ask me why the pig was
created, I
immediately reply, as if two
boys were disputing, by asking you why
were
vipers and
scorpions? You must not
judge that anything from the
hand of
God is superfluous, because there are many
beasts and
birds which your
palate
rejects. But this may perhaps look more like contentiousness and
pugnacity than
truth. Let me tell you therefore that pigs and
wild-boars, and stags, and the
rest of living creatures were
created,
that
soldiers, athletes,
sailors, rhetoricians, miners, and other
slaves of hard toil, who need physical
strength, might have
food: and
also those who carry arms and provisions, who wear themselves out with
the
work of
hand or
foot, who ply the oar, who need good lungs to shout
and speak, who level
mountains and
sleep out rain or fair. But our
religion does not train boxers, athletes,
sailors,
soldiers, or
ditchers, but followers of
wisdom, who
devote themselves to the
worship
of
God, and know why they were
created and are in the
world from which
they are impatient to depart. Hence also the
Apostle says:
4729
“When I am
weak, then am I
strong.” And
4730
“Though
our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is
renewed day by
day.” And
4731
“I
have the desire to depart and be with
Christ.” And,
4732
“Make not provision for the
flesh to fulfil the
lusts thereof.” Are all commanded
4733
| 4733 Matt. x. 9, xix. 21; Mark vi. 8. |
not to have two coats, nor
food in
their
scrip,
money in their purse, a
staff in the
hand, shoes on the
feet? or to sell all they possess and give to the
poor, and follow
Jesus? Of course not: but the command is for those who wish to be
perfect. On the contrary John the Baptist lays down one rule for the
soldiers, another for the
publicans. But the
Lord says in the
Gospel to
him who had
boasted of having kept the whole
law:
4734
“If thou wilt be
perfect, go
and sell all that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and come, follow
me.” That He might not seem to lay a heavy burden on
unwilling
shoulders, He sent His hearer away with full
power to please himself,
saying “If thou wilt be
perfect.” And so I too say to you:
If you wish to be
perfect, it is good not to drink
wine, and eat
flesh.
If you wish to be
perfect, it is better to enrich the
mind than to
stuff the body. But if you are an
infant and fond of the cooks and
their preparations, no one will
snatch the dainties out of your mouth.
Eat and drink, and, if you like, with
Israel rise up and play, and
sing4735
“Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we shall
die.” Let him eat and drink, who looks for
death when he has
feasted, and who says with Epicurus, “There is
nothing after
death, and
death itself is nothing.” We believe
Paul when he says in tones of
thunder:
4736
“Meats for the
belly, and the
belly for meats. But
God will
destroy both them and it.”
7. I have quoted these few passages of Scripture to show
that we are at one with the philosophers. But who does not know that no
universal law of nature regulates the food of all nations, and that
each eats those things of which it has abundance? For instance, the
Arabians and Saracens, and all the wild tribes of the desert live on
camel’s milk and flesh: for the camel, to suit the climate and
barren soil of those regions, is easily bred and reared. They think it
wicked to eat the flesh of swine. Why? Because pigs which fatten on
acorns, chestnuts, roots of ferns, and barley, are seldom or never
found among them: and if they were found, they would not afford the
nourishment of which we spoke just now. The exact opposite is the case
with the northern peoples. If you were to force them to eat the flesh
of asses and camels, they would think it the same as though they were
compelled to devour a wolf or a crow. In Pontus and Phrygia a
pater-familias pays a good price for fat white worms with blackish
heads, which breed in decayed wood. And as with us the woodcock and
fig-pecker, the mullet and scar, are reputed delicacies, so with them
it is a luxury to eat the4737
| 4737 That is, the
wood-worm just referred to. |
xylophagus.
Again, because throughout the glowing wastes of the
desert clouds of
locusts are found, it is customary with the peoples of the East and of
Libya to
feed on
locusts. John the Baptist
proves the
truth of this.
Compel a Phrygian or a native of
Pontus to eat a
locust, and he will
think it scandalous. Force a Syrian, an African, or Arabian to
swallow
worms, he will have the same contempt for them as for
flies,
millepedes, and lizards, although the Syrians are accustomed to eat
land-crocodiles, and the Africans even green lizards. In Egypt and
Palestine, owing to the scarcity of
cattle no one eats beef, or makes
the
flesh of bulls or
oxen, or calves, a portion of their
food.
Moreover, in my
province4738
| 4738 Pannonia, of
which Valens also was a native. |
it is
considered a
crime to eat veal. Accordingly the
Emperor Valens recently
promulgated a
law throughout the East, prohibiting the killing and
eating of calves. He had in view the interests of agriculture, and
wished to check the bad
practice of the commoner sort of the people who
imitated the
Jews in devouring the
flesh of calves, instead of
fowls
and sucking pigs. The Nomad
tribes, and the
4739
| 4739 This name,
which signifies dwellers in caves, was applied by Greek
geographers to various peoples, but especially to the uncivilized
inhabitants of the west coast of the Red Sea, along the shores of Upper
Egypt and Æthiopia. The whole coast was called
Troglodytice. |
Troglodytes, and Scythians, and the
barbarous
4740
| 4740 In 376 the Goths
were driven out of their country by the Huns. They were allowed by
Valens to cross the Danube, but war soon broke out and the emperor was
defeated with great slaughter on Aug. 9, 378. |
Huns with whom we have recently
become acquainted, eat
flesh half
raw. Moreover the Icthyophagi, a wandering race on the shores of the
Red Sea, broil
fish on the
stones made
hot by the sun, and subsist on
this
poor food. The
4741
| 4741 The Sarmatians
dwelt on the N. E. of the Sea of Azov, E. of the river Don. |
Sarmatians,
the
4742
| 4742 They were
located in the S. E. of Germany. |
Chuadi, the
4743
| 4743 The name given
to the great confederacy of German peoples who in a.d. 409 traversed Germany and Gaul, and invaded Spain. In
429 they conquered all the Roman dominions in Africa, and in 455 they
plundered Rome. Their kingdom was destroyed by Belisarius in 535. |
Vandals, and countless other races,
delight in the
flesh of
horses and
wolves. Why should I speak of other
nations when I myself, a
youth on a
visit to Gaul, heard that the
Atticoti, a British
tribe, eat human
flesh, and that although they find
herds of
swine, and droves of large or
small cattle in the woods, it is
their
custom to
cut off the buttocks of the
shepherds and the breasts
of their
women, and to regard them as the greatest
delicacies? The
Scots have no
wives of their own; as though they read Plato’s
Republic and took Cato for their
leader, no man among them has his own
wife, but like
beasts they indulge their
lust to their
hearts’
content. The Persians, Medes, Indians, and
Ethiopians, peoples on a par
with
Rome itself, have intercourse with mothers and
grandmothers, with
daughters and granddaughters. The
4744
| 4744 A people of
Central Asia. Cyrus the Great was slain in an expedition against
them. |
Massagetæ and
4745
| 4745 On the Oxus near
its entrance into the Caspian Sea. |
Derbices think those persons most
unhappy who
die of sickness—and when
parents,
kindred, or
friends
reach old age, they are
murdered and
devoured. It is thought better
that they should be eaten by the people themselves than by the
worms.
The
4746
Tibareni crucify those whom they have
loved before when they have grown old. The
4747
| 4747 Hyrcania was a
province of the Persian Empire, on the S. and S. E. shores of the
Caspian or Hyrcanian Sea. Jerome draws many of these details from the
treatise of Porphyry Περὶ
ἀποχῆς
ἐμψύχιων. |
Hyrcani throw them out half alive to
the
birds and
dogs: the Caspians leave them dead for the same
beasts.
The Scythians bury alive with the remains of the dead those who were
beloved of the
deceased. The Bactrians throw their old men to
dogs
which they rear for the very purpose, and when Stasanor,
Alexander’s general, wished to correct the
practice, he almost
lost his
province. Force an Egyptian to drink
sheep’s
milk:
drive, if you can, a Pelusiote to eat an onion. Almost every city in
Egypt venerates its own
beasts and monsters, and whatever be the object
of
worship, that they think inviolable and
sacred. Hence it is that
their
towns also are named after
animals Leonto, Cyno, Lyco, Busyris,
Thmuis, which is, being
interpreted, a
he-goat. And to make us
understand what sort of gods Egypt always welcomed, one of their cities
was recently called
4748
| 4748 Antinous was
drowned in the Nile. a.d. 122. The
emperor’s grief was so great that he enrolled his favourite
amongst the gods, caused a temple to be erected to his honour at
Mantinea, and founded the city of Antinoopolis. |
Antinous
after Hadrian’s favourite. You see clearly then that not only in
eating, but also in
burial, in wedlock, and in every department of
life, each race follows its own
practice and
peculiar usages, and takes
that for the
law of
nature which is most familiar to it. But suppose
all
nations alike ate
flesh, and let that be everywhere
lawful which
the place produces. How does it concern us whose conversation is in
heaven? who, as well as Pythagoras and Empedocles and all
lovers of
wisdom, are not bound to the circumstances of our
birth, but of our new
birth: who by
abstinence subjugate our refractory
flesh, eager to
follow the allurements of
lust? The eating of
flesh, and drinking of
wine, and fulness of
stomach, is the
seed-plot of
lust. And so the
comic
poet says,
4749
“Venus
shivers unless Ceres and Bacchus be with her.”
8. Through the five senses, as through open windows,
vice has access to the soul. The metropolis and citadel of the mind
cannot be taken unless the enemy have previously entered by its doors.
The soul is distressed by the disorder they produce, and is led captive
by sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. If any one delights in the
sports of the circus, or the struggles of athletes, the versatility of
actors, the figure of women, in splendid jewels, dress, silver and
gold, and other things of the kind, the liberty of the soul is lost
through the windows of the eyes, and the prophet’s words are
fulfilled:4750
“
Death is come up into our
windows.” Again, our sense of hearing is flattered by the tones
of various
instruments and the modulations of the voice; and whatever
enters the
ear by the
songs of
poets and comedians, by the pleasantries
and verses of pantomimic actors, weakens the manly fibre of the
mind.
Then, again, no one but a profligate denies that the profligate and
licentious find a
delight in sweet odours, different sorts of
incense,
fragrant balsam,
4751
| 4751 An Egyptian
perfuming powder. |
kuphi,
4752
œnanthe, and musk, which is
nothing but the
skin of a
foreign rat. And who does not know that
gluttony is the mother of avarice, and, as it were, fetters the
heart
and keeps it pressed down upon the
earth? For the sake of a temporary
gratification of the appetite,
land and
sea are ransacked, and we toil
and
sweat our lives through, that we may send down our
throats
honey-
wine and costly
food. The desire to handle other men’s
persons, and the burning
lust for
women, is a passion bordering on
insanity. To gratify this sense we
languish, grow
angry, throw ourselves about with
joy, indulge
envy,
engage in rivalry, are filled with
anxiety, and when we have terminated
the
pleasure with more or less repentance, we once more take
fire, and
want to do that which we again
regret doing. Where, then, that which we
may call the thin edge of disturbance, has entered the citadel of the
mind through these
doors, what will become of its
liberty, its
endurance, its thought of
God, particularly since the sense of touch
can picture to itself even bygone
pleasures, and through the
recollection of vice forces the
soul to take part in them, and after a
manner to
practice what it does not actually
commit?
9. At the call of reasoning such as this, many
philosophers have forsaken the crowded cities, and their pleasure
gardens in the suburbs with well-watered grounds, shady trees,
twittering birds, crystal fountains, murmuring brooks, and many charms
for eye and ear, lest through luxury and abundance of riches, the
firmness of the mind should be enfeebled, and its purity debauched. For
there is no good in frequently seeing objects which may one day lead to
your captivity, or in making trial of things which you would find it
hard to do without. Even the Pythagoreans shunned company of this kind
and were wont to dwell in solitary places in the desert. The Platonists
also and Stoics lived in the groves and porticos of temples, that,
admonished by the sanctity of their restricted abode, they might think
of nothing but virtue. Plato, moreover, himself, when4753
Diogenes
trampled on his couches with
muddy
feet (he being a
rich man), chose a
house called
4754
| 4754 Academia
was a piece of land on the Cephisus about three-quarters of a mile from
Athens, originally belonging to the hero Academus. Here was a Gymnasium
with plane and olive plantations, etc. Plato had a piece of land in the
neighbourhood; here he taught, and after him his followers, who were
hence called Academici. Cicero called his villa Academia. |
Academia at some distance from
the city, in a spot not only lonely but unhealthy, so that he might
have
leisure for philosophy. His object was that by constant
anxiety
about sickness the
assaults of
lust might be defeated, and that his
disciples might experience no
pleasure but that afforded by the things
they
learned. We have read of some who took out their own
eyes lest
through sight they might lose the contemplation of philosophy. Hence it
was that
4755
| 4755 Flourished about
b.c. 320. Though heir to a large fortune he
renounced it all, and lived and died as a true Cynic. He was called the
“door-opener,” because it was his practice to visit every
house at Athens and rebuke its inmates. |
Crates the famous Theban, after
throwing into the
sea a considerable weight of
gold, exclaimed,
“Go to the bottom, ye
evil lusts: I will
drown you that you may
not
drown me.” But if anyone thinks to
enjoy keenly
meat and
drink in excess, and at the same time to
devote himself to philosophy,
that is to say, to
live in luxury and yet not to be hampered by the
vices attendant on luxury, he
deceives himself. For if it be the case
that even when
far distant from them we are frequently caught in the
snares of
nature, and are compelled to desire those things of which we
have a scant supply: what
folly it is to think we are free when we are
surrounded by the nets of
pleasure! We think of what we see, hear,
smell,
taste, handle, and are led to desire the thing which affords us
pleasure. That the
mind sees and hears, and that we can neither hear
nor see anything unless our senses are
fixed upon the objects of sight
and hearing, is an old saw. It is difficult, or rather
impossible, when
we are swimming in luxury and
pleasure not to think of what we are
doing: and it is an idle pretence which some men put forward
4756
| 4756 A common form of
Gnostic error revived many centuries afterwards by the Anabaptists. |
that they can take their fill of
pleasure with their
faith and
purity and mental uprightness unimpaired.
It is a violation of
nature to
revel in
pleasure, and the
Apostle gives
a caution against this very thing when he says,
4757
“She that giveth herself to
pleasure is dead while she liveth.”
10. The bodily senses are like horses madly racing, but
the soul like a charioteer holds the reins. And as horses without a
driver go at break-neck speed, so the body if it be not governed by the
reasonable soul rushes to its own destruction. The philosophers make
use of another illustration of the relations between soul and body;4758
| 4758 See Cicero,
Repub. Bk. III. |
they say the body is a
boy, the
soul
his
tutor. Hence the
4759
| 4759 Sallust. In
Cat. ch. 1. |
historian
tells us “that our
soul directs, our body serves. The one we have
in common with the gods, the other with the
beasts.” So then
unless the vices of
youth and boyhood are regulated by the
wisdom of
the
tutor, every effort and every impulse sets strongly in the
direction of
wantonness. We might lose four of the senses and yet
live,—that is we could do without sight, hearing, smell, and the
pleasures of touch. But a human being cannot subsist without tasting
food. It follows that reason must be present, that we may take
food of
such a
kind and in such quantities as will not burden the body, or
hinder the free movement of the
soul: for it is the way with us that we
eat, and
walk, and
sleep, and digest our
food, and afterwards in the
fulness of
blood have to bear the spur of
lust.
4760
“
Wine is a mocker,
strong drink a
brawler.” Whosoever has much to do with these is not
wise. And we should not take such
food as is
difficult of digestion, or such as when eaten will give us reason to
complain that we got it and lost it with much effort. The
preparation
of vegetables, fruit, and pulse is easy, and does not require the skill
of expensive cooks: our bodies are nourished by them with little
trouble on our part; and, if taken in
moderation, such
food is easier
to digest, and at less
cost, because it does not stimulate the
appetite, and therefore is not
devoured with avidity. No one has his
stomach inflated or overloaded if he eats only one or two dishes, and
those inexpensive ones: such a condition comes of pampering the
taste
with a variety of meats. The smells of the kitchen may induce us to
eat, but when
hunger is satisfied, they make us their
slaves. Hence
gorging gives rise to
disease: and many persons find
relief for the
discomfort of
gluttony in emetics,—what they disgraced themselves
by putting in, they with still greater disgrace put out.
11.4761
Hippocrates in
his Aphorisms
teaches that stout persons of a coarse
habit of body,
when once they have attained their full growth, unless the plethora be
quickly relieved by
blood-letting, develop tendencies to paralysis and
the worst forms of
disease: they must therefore be bled, that there may
be
room for
fresh growth. For it is not the
nature of our bodies to
continue in one stay, but go on either to increase or decrease, and no
animal can
live which is incapable of growth. Whence
4762
| 4762 Born at
Pergamum a.d. 130, died probably in the year
200. His writings are considered to have had a more extensive influence
on medical science than even those of Hippocrates. |
Galen, a very
learned man and the
commentator on Hippocrates, says in his exhortation to the
practice of
medicine that athletes whose whole
life and art consists in stuffing
cannot
live long, nor be
healthy: and that their
souls enveloped with
superfluous
blood and fat, and as it were covered with mud, have no
refined or heavenly thoughts, but are always intent upon gluttonous and
voracious feasting. Diogenes maintains that tyrants do not bring about
revolutions in cities, and foment
wars civil or
foreign for the sake of
a simple diet of vegetables and fruits, but for costly meats and the
delicacies of the
table. And,
strange to say, Epicurus, the defender of
pleasure, in all his books speaks of nothing but vegetables and fruits;
and he says that we ought to
live on cheap
food because the
preparation
of sumptuous banquets of
flesh involves great care and suffering, and
greater pains attend the search for such
delicacies than
pleasures the
consumption of them. Our bodies need only something to eat and drink.
Where there is
bread and
water, and the like,
nature is satisfied.
Whatever more there may be does not go to meet the wants of
life, but
are
ministers to vicious
pleasure. Eating and drinking does not quench
the longing for luxuries, but appeases
hunger and
thirst. Persons who
feed on
flesh want also gratifications not found in
flesh. But they who
adopt a simple diet do not look for
flesh. Further, we cannot
devote
ourselves to
wisdom if our thoughts are running on a well-laden
table,
the supply of which requires an excess of
work and
anxiety. The wants
of
nature are soon satisfied: cold and
hunger can be banished with
simple
food and
clothing. Hence the
Apostle says: “Having
food
and
clothing let us be therewith content.”
Delicacies and the
various dishes of the
feast are the nurses of avarice. The
soul greatly
exults when you are content with little: you have the
world beneath
your
feet, and can exchange all its
power, its
feasts, and its
lusts,
the objects for which men rake
money together, for common
food, and
make up for them all with a sack-
cloth shirt. Take away the luxurious
feasting and the gratification of
lust, and no one will want
riches to
be used either in the
belly, or beneath it. The invalid only regains
his
health by diminishing and carefully selecting his
food,
i.e., in medical phrase, by adopting a “slender
diet.” The same
food that
recovers health, can
preserve it, for
no one can
imagine vegetables to be the cause of
disease. And if
vegetables do not give the
strength of Milo of Crotona—a
strength
supplied and nourished by
meat—what need has a
wise man and a
Christian philosopher of such
strength as is required by athletes and
soldiers, and which, if he had it, would only stimulate to vice? Let
those persons deem
meat accordant with
health who wish to gratify their
lust, and who, sunk in
filthy pleasure, are always at
heat. What a
Christian wants is
health, but not superfluous
strength. And it ought
not to disturb us if we find but few supporters; for the pure and
temperate are as rare as good and
faithful friends, and
virtue is
always
scarce. Study the
temperance of
4763
| 4763 Fabricius was
censor in b.c. 275, and devoted himself to
repressing the prevalent taste for luxury. The story of his expelling
from the Senate P. Cornelius Rufinus because he possessed ten
pounds’ weight of silver-plate is well-known. |
Fabricius, or the
poverty of
4764
| 4764 Curius
Dentatus, Consul b.c. 290 with P. Cornelius
Rufinus to whom allusion has just been made, was no less distinguished
for simplicity of life than was Fabricius. He was censor b.c. 272. |
Curius, and in a great city you will
find few worthy of your imitation. You need not
fear that if you do not
eat
flesh, fowlers and hunters will have learnt their
craft in
vain.
12. We have read
that some who suffered with disease of the joints and with gouty
humours recovered their health by proscribing delicacies, and coming
down to a simple board and mean food. For they were then free from the
worry of managing a house and from unlimited feasting. Horace4765
makes fun of the longing for
food
which when eaten
leaves nothing but
regret.
“Scorn pleasure; she but hurts when bought with
pain.”
And when, in the delightful retirement of the country,
by way of satirizing voluptuous men, he described himself as plump and
fat, his sportive verse ran thus:
“Pay me a visit if you want to laugh,
You’ll find me fat and sleek with
well-dress’d hide,
Like any pig from Epicurus’ sty.”
But even if our food be the commonest, we must avoid
repletion. For nothing is so destructive to the mind as a full belly,
fermenting like a wine vat and giving forth its gases on all sides.
What sort of fasting is it, or what refreshment is there after fasting,
when we are blown out with yesterday’s dinner, and our4766
| 4766 Or, “an
ante-room to the closet”—Meditatorium. Comp.
Tertullian, Treatise on Fasting, ch. 6. |
stomach is made a factory for the
closet? We wish to get credit for protracted
abstinence, and all the
while we
devour so much that a day and a
night can scarcely digest it.
The proper name to give it is not
fasting, but rather debauch and rank
indigestion.
13.4767
Dicæarchus in his book of
Antiquities, describing Greece, relates that under Saturn, that is in
the Golden Age, when the ground brought forth all things
abundantly, no
one ate
flesh, but every one lived on
field produce and fruits which
the
earth bore of itself. Xenophon in eight books narrates the
life of
Cyrus, King of the Persians, and asserts that they supported
life on
barley, cress,
salt, and black
bread. Both the aforesaid Xenophon,
Theophrastus, and almost all the
Greek writers testify to the frugal
diet of the Spartans.
4768
| 4768 Chæremon
was chief librarian of the Alexandrian library. He afterwards became
one of Nero’s tutors. |
Chæremon the Stoic, a man of
great eloquence, has a
treatise on the
life of the ancient
priests of
Egypt, who, he says, laid aside all
worldly business and cares, and
were ever in the
temple, studying
nature and the regulating causes of
the heavenly bodies; they never had intercourse with
women; they never
from the time they began to
devote themselves to the
divine service set
eyes on their
kindred and relations, nor even saw their
children; they
always
abstained from
flesh and
wine, on account of the
light-headedness and dizziness which a
small quantity of
food caused,
and especially to
avoid the stimulation of the
lustful appetite
engendered by this
meat and drink. They seldom ate
bread, that they
might not load the
stomach. And whenever they ate it, they mixed
pounded
hyssop with all that they took, so that the action of its
warmth might diminish the weight of the heavier
food. They used no
oil
except with vegetables, and then only in
small quantities, to mitigate
the unpalatable
taste. What need, he says, to speak of
birds, when they
avoided even eggs and
milk as
flesh. The one, they said, was liquid
flesh, the other was
blood with the colour changed? Their
bed was made
of
palm-
leaves, called by them
baiæ: a sloping
footstool
laid upon the ground served for a pillow, and they could go without
food for two or three days. The humours of the body which arise from
sedentary
habits were dried up by reducing their diet to an extreme
point.
14.4769
Josephus in
the second book of the history of the
Jewish captivity, and in the
eighteenth book of the
Antiquities, and the two treatises against
Apion, describes three
sects of the
Jews, the
Pharisees,
Sadducees, and
Essenes. On the last of these he bestows wondrous
praise because they
practised perpetual
abstinence from
wives,
wine, and
flesh, and made a
second
nature of their
daily fast.
4770
| 4770 Philo the Jew.
His exact date cannot be given; but he was advanced in years when he
went to Rome (a.d. 40) on his famous embassy
in behalf of his countrymen. |
Philo,
too, a man of great learning,
published a
treatise of his own on their
mode of
life.
4771
| 4771 Neanthes lived
about b.c. 241. He was a voluminous writer,
chiefly on historical subjects. |
Neanthes of
Cizycus, and
4772
Asclepiades
of
Cyprus, at the time when Pygmalion ruled over the East, relate that
the eating of
flesh was unknown. Eubulus, also, who wrote the history
of
4773
| 4773 The sun-god
of the Persians. |
Mithras in many volumes, relates
that among the Persians there are three kinds of Magi, the first of
whom, those of greatest learning and eloquence, take no
food except
meal and vegetables. At Eleusis it is customary to
abstain from
fowls
and
fish and certain fruits.
4774
| 4774 Supposed to be
the same as the Bardesanes born at Edessa in Mesopotamia, who
flourished in the latter half of the second century. Jerome again
refers to him in the book on Illustrious Men, c. 33. |
Bardesanes,
a Babylonian, divides the Gymnosophists of
India into two classes, the
one called Brahmans, the other Samaneans, who are so rigidly
self-restrained that they support
themselves either with the fruit of
trees which grow on the
banks of
the Ganges, or with common
food of rice or
flour, and when the king
visits them, he is wont to adore them, and thinks the
peace of his
country depends upon their prayers. Euripides relates that the
prophets
of
Jupiter in
Crete abstained not only from
flesh, but also from cooked
food.
4775
| 4775 Xenocrates was
born b.c. 396, died b.c. 314. |
Xenocrates the
philosopher
writes that at Athens out of all the
laws of
4776
| 4776 Triptolemus
was the legendary inventor of the plough and of agriculture. |
Triptolemus only three
precepts
remain in the
temple of Ceres: respect to
parents,
reverence for the
gods, and
abstinence from
flesh.
4777
| 4777 Poems
ascribed to the mythical Orpheus are quoted by Plato. The extant poems
which bear his name are forgeries of Christian grammarians and
philosophers of the Alexandrine school; but some fragments of the old
Orphic poetry are said to be remaining. |
Orpheus in his
song utterly
denounces the eating of
flesh. I might speak of the frugality of
Pythagoras, Socrates, and
4778
| 4778 Antisthenes
was the founder of the Cynic philosophy. He was a devoted disciple of
Socrates and flourished about b.c. 366. |
Antisthenes to our confusion: but
it would be tedious, and would require a
work to itself. At all events
this is the Antisthenes who, after teaching rhetoric with renown, on
hearing Socrates, is related to have said to his
disciples, “Go,
and
seek a master, for I have now found one.” He immediately,
sold what he had, divided the proceeds among the people, and kept
nothing for himself but a
small cloak. Of his
poverty and toil Xenophon
in the Symposium is a witness, and so are his countless treatises, some
philosophical, some rhetorical. His most famous follower was the great
Diogenes, who was mightier than King
Alexander in that he
conquered
human
nature. For Antisthenes would not take a single pupil, and when
he could not get rid of the persistent Diogenes he threatened him with
a stick if he did not depart. The latter is said to have laid down his
head and said, “No stick will be hard enough to prevent me from
following you.”
4779
| 4779 The
distinguished Peripatetic philosopher and historian. He lived,
probably, about the time of Ptolemy Philopator (b.c. 222–205). |
Satyrus, the
biographer of illustrious men, relates that Diogenes to
guard himself
against the cold, folded his cloak double: his
scrip was his pantry:
and when aged he carried a stick to support his
feeble frame, and was
commonly called “Old
Hand-to-mouth,” because to that very
hour he begged and received
food from any one. His
home was the
gateways and city arcades. And when he wriggled into his tub, he would
joke about his movable
house that adapted itself to the
seasons. For
when the
weather was cold he used to turn the mouth of the tub towards
the south: in
summer towards the north; and whatever the direction of
the sun might be, that way the
palace of Diogenes was turned. He had a
wooden dish for drinking; but on one occasion seeing a
boy drinking
with the hollow of his
hand he is related to have
dashed the
cup to the
ground, saying that he did not know
nature provided a
cup. His
virtue
and self-restraint were
proved even by his
death. It is said that, now
an old man, he was on his way to the Olympic games, which used to be
attended by a great concourse of people from all parts of Greece, when
he was
overtaken by
fever and lay down upon the
bank by the road-side.
And when his
friends wished to place him on a
beast or in a conveyance,
he did not assent, but crossing to the shade of a
tree said, “Go
your way, I
pray you, and see the games: this
night will
prove me
either
conquered or conqueror. If I
conquer the
fever, I shall go to
the games: if the
fever conquers me, I shall enter the unseen
world.” There through the
night he lay gasping for
breath and did
not, as we are told, so much
die as banish the
fever by
death. I have
cited the example of only one
philosopher, so that our fine, erect,
muscular athletes, who hardly make a
shadow of a footmark in their
swift passage, whose words are in their fists and their reasoning in
their heels, who either know nothing of apostolic
poverty and the
hardness of the
cross, or
despise it, may at least
imitate Gentile
moderation.
15. So far I have dealt with the arguments and examples
of philosophers. Now I will pass on to the beginning of the human race,
that is, to the sphere which belongs to us. I will first point out that
Adam received a command in paradise to abstain from one tree though he
might eat the other fruit. The blessedness of paradise could not be
consecrated without abstinence from food. So long as he fasted, he
remained in paradise; he ate, and was cast out; he was no sooner cast
out than he married a wife. While he fasted in paradise he continued a
virgin: when he filled himself with food in the earth, he bound himself
with the tie of marriage. And yet though cast out he did not
immediately receive permission to eat flesh; but only the fruits of
trees and the produce of the crops, and herbs and vegetables were given
him for food, that even when an exile from paradise he might feed not
upon flesh which was not to be found in paradise, but upon grain and
fruit like that of paradise. But afterwards when4780
God saw that the
heart of man from his
youth was set on
wickedness continually, and that His Spirit could not
remain in them because they were
flesh, He by the deluge passed sentence on the
works of the
flesh, and, taking note of the extreme greediness of men,
4781
gave them
liberty to eat
flesh: so
that while understanding that all things were
lawful for them, they
might not greatly desire that which was allowed, lest they should turn
a
commandment into a cause of
transgression. And yet even then,
fasting
was in part commanded. For, seeing that some
animals are called
clean,
some
unclean, and the
unclean animals were taken into
Noah’s
ark
by pairs, the
clean in uneven numbers (and of course the eating of the
unclean was forbidden, otherwise the term
unclean would be unmeaning),
fasting was in part
consecrated: restraint in the use of all was taught
by the prohibition of some. Why did
Esau lose his
birthright? Was it
not on account of
food? and he could not atone with
tears for the
impatience of his appetite. The people of
Israel cast out from Egypt
and on their way to the
land of
promise, the
land flowing with
milk and
honey, longed for the
flesh of Egypt, and the melons and garlic,
saying:
4782
“Would that we had
died
by the
hand of the
Lord in the
land of Egypt, when we sat by the
flesh
pots.” And again,
4783
“Who shall give us
flesh to eat? We remember the
fish which we
did eat in Egypt for nought; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the
leeks, and the onions, and the garlic: but now our
soul is dried away:
we have nought
save this
manna to look to.”
They despised angels’ food, and sighed for the
flesh of Egypt. Moses for forty days and forty nights fasted on Mount
Sinai, and showed even then that man does not live on bread alone, but
on every word of God. He says to the Lord, “the people is full
and maketh idols.” Moses with empty stomach received the law
written with the finger of God. The people that ate and drank and rose
up to play fashioned a golden calf, and preferred an Egyptian ox to the
majesty of the Lord. The toil of so many days perished through the
fulness of a single hour. Moses boldly broke the tables: for he knew
that drunkards cannot hear the word of God.4784
“The
beloved grew thick,
waxed
fat, and became sleek: he kicked and
forsook the
Lord which made him,
and departed from the
God of his
salvation.” Hence also it is
enjoined in the same Book of Deuteronomy:
4785
“
Beware, lest when thou hast
eaten and drunk, and hast built
goodly houses, and when thy
herds and
thy
flocks multiply, and thy
silver and
gold is multiplied, then thine
heart be lifted up, and thou
forget the
Lord thy
God.” In short
the people ate and their
heart grew thick, lest they should see with
their
eyes, and hear with their
ears, and understand with their
heart:
so the people well fed and fat-fleshed could not bear the
countenance
of
Moses who fasted, for, to correctly render the Hebrew, it was
4786
| 4786 The curious
custom of representing Moses with horns arose from a mistake in the
Vulgate rendering. The Hebrew verb לוקּ, to emit rays, is derived
from a word which, meaning mostly a horn, has in the dual the
signification rays of light. See Hab. iii. 4. |
furnished with
horns through his
converse with
God. And it was not, as some think, to show that there is
no difference between
virginity and
marriage, but to assert his
sympathy with severe
fasting, that our
Lord and Saviour when he was
transfigured on the Mount
revealed Moses and
Elias with Himself in
glory. Although
Moses and
Elias were properly types of the
Law and the
Prophets, as is clearly witnessed by the
Gospel:
4787
“They spake of his departure
which he was about to accomplish at
Jerusalem.” For the passion
of our
Lord is declared not by
virginity or
marriage, but by the
Law
and the
Prophets. If, however, any persons contentiously maintain that
by
Moses is signified
marriage, by
Elias virginity, let me tell them
briefly that
Moses died and was buried, but
Elias was carried off in a
chariot of
fire and entered on immortality before he approached
death.
But the second writing of the
tables could not be effected without
fasting. What was lost by
drunkenness was regained by
abstinence, a
proof that by
fasting we can return to
paradise, whence, though
fulness, we have been expelled. In
4788
Exodus we read that the
battle was
fought against
Amalek while
Moses prayed, and the whole people fasted
until the evening.
4789
Joshua, the
son of Nun, bade sun and
moon stand still, and the victorious
army
prolonged its fast for more than a day.
4790
| 4790 1 Sam. xiv. 24. Heb. “entered into the
wood.” The English version follows the Hebrew. The Sept. ἠρἱστα (Jerome’s prandebat)
is perhaps only a repetition of the preceding thought. Another
rendering inserts the negative, οὐκ
ἠρίστα. |
Saul, as it is written in the first book
of Kings, pronounced a
curse on him who ate
bread before the evening,
and until he had
avenged himself upon his
enemies. So none of his
people
tasted any
food. And all they of the
land took
food. And so
binding was a solemn fast once it was proclaimed to the
Lord, that
Jonathan, to whom the
victory was due, was taken by lot, and
4791
could not
escape the charge of
sinning
in ignorance, and his
father’s
hand was
raised against him, and
the prayers of the people
scarce availed to
save him.
4792
Elijah after the
preparation of a
forty days fast saw
God on Mount
Horeb, and heard from Him the words, “What doest thou here,
Elijah?” There is much more familiarity in this than in the
“Where art thou,
Adam?” of Genesis. The latter was intended
to excite the
fears of one who had fed and was lost; the former was
affectionately addressed to a
fasting servant.
4793
When the people were
assembled in
Mizpeh, Samuel proclaimed a fast, and so strengthened them, and thus
made them
prevail against the
enemy.
4794
The attack of the Assyrians was
repulsed, and the might of Sennacherib utterly
crushed, by the
tears
and
sackcloth of King
Hezekiah, and by his humbling himself with
fasting. So also the city of
Nineveh by
fasting excited
compassion and
turned aside the threatening
wrath of the
Lord. And
4795
Sodom and Gomorrha might have appeased
it, had they been willing to
repent, and through the aid of
fasting
gain for themselves
tears of repentance.
4796
Ahab, the most impious of kings, by
fasting and wearing
sackcloth, succeeded in escaping the sentence of
God, and in deferring the
overthrow of his
house to the days of his
posterity.
4797
Hannah, the
wife of Elkanah, by
fasting won the
gift of a son.
4798
At
Babylon the magicians came into
peril, every interpreter of
dreams,
soothsayer, and diviner was slain. Daniel and the three
youths gained a
good
report by
fasting, and although they were fed on pulse, they were
fairer and wiser than they who ate the
flesh from the king’s
table. Then it is written that Daniel fasted for three weeks; he ate no
pleasant
bread;
flesh and
wine entered not his mouth; he was not
anointed with
oil; and the
angel came to him saying,
4799
“Daniel, thou art worthy of
compassion.” He who in the
eyes of
God was worthy of
compassion,
afterwards was an object of
terror to the
lions in their
den. How fair
a thing is that which propitiates
God, tames
lions,
terrifies demons!
Habakkuk (although we do not find this in the Hebrew Scriptures
4800
| 4800 The story is in
the apocryphal part of the book of Daniel. |
) was sent to him with the
reaper’s
meal, for by a
week’s
abstinence he had merited so distinguished
a server.
David, when his son was in
danger after his
adultery, made
confession in
ashes and with
fasting.
4801
He tells us that he ate
ashes like
bread, and mingled his drink with weeping.
4802
And that his
knees became
weak through
fasting. Yet he had certainly heard from
Nathan the words,
4803
“The
Lord also hath put away thy
sin.”
Samson and Samuel drank neither
wine nor
strong drink, for
they were
children of
promise, and conceived in
abstinence and
fasting.
4804
Aaron and the other
priests when about
to enter the
temple, refrained from all intoxicating drink for
fear
they should
die. Whence we
learn that they
die who
minister in the
Church without sobriety. And hence it is a
reproach against
Israel:
4805
“Ye gave my Nazarites
wine to
drink.” Jonadab, the son of Rechab, commanded his sons to drink
no
wine for ever. And when Jeremiah offered them
wine to drink, and
they of their own
accord refused it, the
Lord spake by the
prophet,
saying:
4806
“Because ye have obeyed the
commandment of Jonadab your
father, Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not
want a man to stand before me for ever.” On the
4807
threshold of the
Gospel appears Anna,
the
daughter of Phanuel, the
wife of one
husband, and a
woman who was
always
fasting. Long-continued chastity and persistent
fasting welcomed
a
Virgin Lord. His
forerunner and herald, John, fed on
locusts and
wild
honey, not on
flesh; and the hermits of the
desert and the monks in
their
cells, at first used the same
sustenance. But the
Lord Himself
consecrated His
baptism by a forty days’ fast, and He taught us
that the more violent
devils4808
| 4808 S. Jerome is
in accord with the Vulgate, Peshito, and certain manuscripts, but the
R.V. omits S. Matt. xvii.
21 (Howbeit this kind goeth
not out but by prayer and fasting) and in S. Mark ix. 29 omits the words respecting fasting. S.
Luke does not refer to our Lord’s supposed remark. |
cannot be
overcome, except by prayer and
fasting.
4809
Cornelius the
centurion was found
worthy through
alms-giving and
frequent fasts to receive the
gift of
the
Holy Spirit before
baptism.
4810
The
Apostle Paul, after speaking of
hunger and
thirst, and his other
labours, perils from robbers, shipwrecks,
loneliness, enumerates
frequent fasts. And he
4811
advises his
disciple Timothy, who had a
weak stomach, and was subject to many
infirmities, to drink
wine in
moderation: “Drink no longer
water,” he says. The fact that he bids him
no longer drink
water shows that he had previously drunk
water. The
apostle would not
have allowed this had not
frequent infirmities and bodily
pain demanded
the concession.
16. The Apostle does indeed4812
blame those who forbade
marriage, and
commanded to
abstain from
food, which
God created for use with
thanksgiving. But he has in view Marcion, and Tatian, and other
heretics, who inculcate perpetual
abstinence, to
destroy, and express
their
hatred and contempt for, the works of the Creator. But we
praise
every creature of
God, and yet prefer leanness to corpulence,
abstinence to luxury,
fasting to fulness.
4813
“He that laboureth laboureth
for himself, and he is eager to his
own
destruction.” And,
4814
“From
the days of John the Baptist (who fasted and was a
virgin) until now
the
kingdom of
heaven suffereth
violence, and men of
violence take it
by force.” For we are afraid lest at the coming of the
eternal
judge we be caught, as in the days of the
flood, and at the
overthrow
of
Sodom and Gomorrha, eating and drinking, and marrying, and giving in
marriage. For both the
flood and the
fire from
heaven found fulness as
well as
marriage ready for
destruction. Nor need we wonder if the
Apostle commands that everything sold in the
market be
bought and
eaten, since with
idolaters, and with those who still ate in the
temples of the
idols meats offered to
idols as such, it passed for the
highest
abstinence to
abstain only from
food eaten by the Gentiles. And
if he says to the
Romans:
4815
“Let not
him that eateth set at nought him that eateth not: and let not him that
eateth not
judge him that eateth,” he does not make
fasting and
fulness of equal merit, but he is speaking against those
believers in
Christ who were still judaizing: and he
warns Gentile
believers, not to
offend those by their
food who were still too
weak in
faith. In brief
this is clear enough in the sequel:
4816
“I
know and am
persuaded in the
Lord Jesus, that nothing is
unclean of
itself:
save that to him who accounteth anything to be
unclean, to him
it is
unclean. For if because of
meat thy
brother is
grieved, thou
walkest no longer in
love.
Destroy not with thy
meat him for whom
Christ died. Let not then your good be
evil spoken of: for the
Kingdom
of
God is not eating and drinking.” And that no one may suppose
he is referring to
fasting and not to
Jewish superstition, he
immediately explains,
4817
“One
man hath
faith to eat all things: but he that is
weak eateth
herbs.” And again,
4818
“One
man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike.
Let each man be fully assured in his own
mind. He that regardeth the
day, regardeth it unto the
Lord: and he that eateth, eateth unto the
Lord, for he giveth
God thanks; and he that eateth not, unto the
Lord
he eateth not, and giveth
God thanks.” For they who were still
weak in
faith and thought some meats
clean, some
unclean: and supposed
there was a difference between one day and another, for example, that
the
Sabbath, and the New Moons, and the
Feast of
Tabernacles were
holier than other days, were commanded to eat
herbs which are
indifferently partaken of by all. But such as were of stronger
faith
believed all meats and all days to be alike.
17. My opponent has dared to maintain that our Lord was
called by the Pharisees a wine-bibber and a glutton: and from the fact
of His going to marriage feasts and from His not despising the banquets
of sinners, I am to infer His wishes respecting ourselves. That Lord,
so you suppose, is a glutton who fasted forty days to hallow Christian
fasting;4819
who calls them
blessed that
hunger and
thirst;
4820
who says that
He has
food, not that which the
disciples surmised, but such as would
not
perish for ever;
4821
| 4821 S. Matt. v. 34. (Rather, not to be anxious about
it.) |
who forbids
us to think of the morrow; who, though He is said to have hungered and
thirsted, and to have gone frequently to various meals, except in
celebrating the
mystery whereby He represented His passion, or
4822
in proving the reality of His body is
nowhere described as ministering to His appetite;
4823
who tells of
purple-clad Dives in
hell for his feasting, and says that
poor Lazarus for his
abstinence
was in
Abraham’s
bosom; who, when we fast,
4824
bids us
anoint our head and
wash our
face, that we fast not to
gain glory from men, but
praise from the
Lord; who did indeed
4825
after His
resurrection eat part of a broiled
fish and of a
honey-comb, not to
allay
hunger and to gratify His palate, but to show the reality of His
own body. For whenever He
raised anyone from the dead He
4826
ordered that
food should be given him
to eat, lest the resurrection should be thought a delusion. And this is
why
Lazarus after his resurrection is
4827
described as being at the
feast with
our
Lord. We do not deny that
fish and other kinds of
flesh, if we
choose, may be taken as
food; but as we prefer
virginity to
marriage,
so do we esteem
fasting and spirituality above meats and
full-bloodedness. And if Peter
4828
before dinner went to the
supper
chamber at the sixth hour, a chance fit of
hunger does not prejudice
fasting. For, if this were so, because our
Lord4829
at the sixth hour sat weary on the
well of
Samaria and wished to drink, all must of necessity, whether
they so desire or not, drink at that time. Possibly it was the
Sabbath,
or the
Lord’s day, and he hungered at the sixth hour after two or
three days’
fasting; for I could never believe that the
Apostle,
if he had eaten a dinner only one day previous and had been blown out
with a great meal, would have been hungry by noon next day. But if he
did
dine the day previous, and was
hungry next day before luncheon, I do not think that a man who was so
soon hungry ate until he was satisfied. Again,
God by the mouth of
Isaiah says what fast He did not choose:
4830
“In the day of your fast ye find
pleasure, and
afflict the lowly: ye fast for
strife and debate, and to
smite with the fist of
wickedness. It is not such a fast that I have
chosen, saith the
Lord.” What
kind He has chosen He thus
teaches:
“Deal thy
bread to the hungry, and bring the houseless
poor into
thy
house. When thou seest the
naked cover him, and
hide not thyself
from thine own
flesh.” He did not therefore
reject fasting, but
showed what He would have it to be: for that bodily
hunger is not
pleasing to
God which is made null and
void by
strife, and plunder, and
lust. If
God does not desire
fasting, how is it that in
4831
Leviticus He commands the whole
people in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, to fast
until the evening, and threatens that he who does not
afflict his
soul
shall
die and be
cut off from his people? How is it that the
4832
graves of
lust where the people fell
in their
devotion to
flesh remain even to this day in the
wilderness?
Do we not read that the stupid people gorged themselves with quails
until the
wrath of
God came upon them? Why was the man of
God at whose
prophecy the
hand of King Jeroboam withered, and who ate contrary to
the command of
God,
4833
immediately smitten?
Strange that
the
lion which left the ass
safe and sound should not spare the
prophet
just risen from his meal! He who, while he was
fasting, had
wrought
miracles, no sooner ate a meal than he paid the penalty for the
gratification. Joel also
cries aloud:
4834
| 4834 Joel i. 14; ii. 15. Jerome agrees with the Sept. Θεραπέια. The
Heb. root signifies to close or bind; hence the meaning
healing. But others translate Θεραπέια by
worship, or service. The correct rendering appears to be
a solemn assembly as in A.V. |
“
Sanctify a fast,
proclaim a
time of healing,” that it might appear that a fast is sanctified
by other works, and that a holy fast avails for the
cure of
sin.
Moreover, just as true
virginity is not prejudiced by the
counterfeit
professions of the
virgins of the
devil, so neither is true
fasting by
the periodic fast and perpetual
abstinence from certain kinds of
food
on the part of the worshippers of Isis and Cybele, particularly when a
fast from
bread is made up for by feasting on
flesh. And just as the
signs of
Moses were
imitated by the
signs of the Egyptians which were
in reality no
signs at all, for the
rod of
Moses swallowed up the
rods
of the magicians: so when the
devil tries to be the rival of
God this
does not
prove that our
religion is superstitious, but that we are
negligent, since we refuse to do what even men of the
world see clearly
to be good.
18. His fourth and last contention is that there are two
classes, the sheep and the goats, the just and the unjust: that the
just stand on the right hand, the other on the left: and that to the
just the words are spoken:4835
“Come,
ye
blessed of my
Father, and
inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from
the
foundation of the
world.” But that
sinners are thus
addressed:
4836
“Depart from me, ye
cursed, into the
eternal fire which is prepared for the
devil and his
angels.” That a good
tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit, nor an
evil tree good fruit. Hence it is that the Saviour says to the
Jews:
4837
“Ye are of your
father the
devil, and the
lusts of your
father it is your will to do.” He
quotes the
parable of the ten
virgins, the
wise and the foolish, and
shows that the five who had no
oil remained outside, but that the other
five who had gotten for themselves the
light of good works went into
the
marriage with the bridegroom. He goes back to the
flood, and tells
us that they who were
righteous like
Noah were
saved, but that the
sinners perished all together. We are informed that among the men of
Sodom and Gomorrha no difference is made except between the two classes
of the good and the bad. The
righteous are
delivered, the
sinners are
consumed by the same
fire. There is one
salvation for those who are
released, one
destruction for those who stay behind. Lot’s
wife
is a clear warning that we must not deviate a
hair’s breadth from
right. If, however, he says, you object and ask me why the
righteous
toils in time of
peace, or in the midst of persecution, if he is to
gain nothing nor have a greater
reward, I would assert that he does
this, not that he may
gain a further
reward but that he may not lose
what he has already received. In Egypt also the ten
plagues fell with
equal
violence upon all that
sinned, and the same
darkness hung over
master and
slave,
noble and ignoble, the king and the people. Again at
the
Red Sea the
righteous all passed over, the
sinners were all
overwhelmed. Six
hundred thousand men, besides those who were unfit for
war through age or sex, all alike fell in the
desert, and two who were
alike in
righteousness are alike
delivered. For forty years all
Israel
toiled and
died alike. As regards
food, an homer of
manna was the
measure for all ages: the
clothes of all alike did not wear out: the
hair of all alike did not grow, nor the beard increase: the shoes of
all lasted the same time. Their
feet grew not hard: the
food in the mouths of all had the same
taste.
They went on their way to one resting place with equal toil and equal
reward. All Hebrews had the same
Passover, the same
Feast of
Tabernacles, the same
Sabbath, the same New Moons. In the seventh, the
Sabbatical Year, all
prisoners were
released without distinction of
persons, and in the year of Jubilee all
debts were
forgiven to all
debtors, and he who had sold
land returned to the inheritance of his
fathers.
19. Then, again, as regards the parable of the sower in
the Gospel, we read that the good ground brought forth fruit, some a
hundred fold, some sixty fold, and some thirty fold; and, on the other
hand, that the bad ground admitted of three degrees of sterility: but
Jovinianus makes only two classes, the good soil and the bad.4838
| 4838 S. Matt. xix. 29; S. Mark x. 29, 30; S.
Luke xviii. 29, 30. |
And as in one
Gospel our
Lord
promises the
Apostles a
hundred fold, in another seven fold, for
leaving
children and
wives, and in the
world to come
life eternal; and
the seven and the
hundred mean the same thing: so, too, in the passage
before us, the numbers describing the fertility of the soil need not
create any difficulty, particularly when the
Evangelist Mark gives the
inverse order, thirty, sixty, and a
hundred. The
Lord says,
4839
“He that eateth my
flesh and
drinketh my
blood abideth in me, and I in him.” As, then, there
are not varying degrees of
Christ’s presence in us, so neither
are there degrees of our
abiding in
Christ.
4840
“Every one that loveth me will
keep my word: and my
Father will
love him, and we will come unto him,
and make our abode with him.” He that is
righteous,
loves Christ:
and if a man thus
loves, the
Father and the Son come to him, and make
their abode with him. Now I suppose that when the
guest is such as this
the
host cannot possibly lack anything. And if our
Lord says,
4841
“In my
Father’s
house are
many
mansions,” His meaning is not that there are different
mansions in the
kingdom of
heaven, but He indicates the number of
Churches in the whole
world, for though the
Church be seven-fold she is
but one. “I go,” He says, “to prepare
a place
for you,” not
places. If this
promise is
peculiar to the
twelve
apostles, then
Paul is shut out from that place, and the chosen
vessel will be thought superfluous and unworthy. John and James,
because they asked more than the others, did not obtain it; and yet
their
dignity is not diminished, because they were equal to the
rest of
the
apostles.
4842
“Know
ye not that your bodies are a
temple of the Holy
Ghost?” A
temple, He says, not
temples, in order to show that
God
dwells in all alike.
4843
“Neither for these only do I
pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; as thou,
Father, in me, and I in thee, are one, so they may be all one in us.
And the
glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them. I have
loved them, as thou hast
loved me. And as we are
Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, one
God, so may they be one people in themselves, that is, like
dear
children, partakers of the
divine nature.” Call the
Church
what you will,
bride, sister, mother, her
assembly is but one and never
lacks
husband,
brother, or son. Her
faith is one, and she is not
defiled by variety of
doctrine, nor divided by
heresies. She continues
a
virgin. Whithersoever the
Lamb goeth, she follows Him: she alone
knows the
Song of
Christ.
20. “If you tell me,” says he, “that
one star differeth from another star in glory, I reply, that one star
does differ from another star; that is, spiritual persons differ from
carnal. We love all the members alike, and do not prefer the eye to the
finger, nor the finger to the ear: but the loss of any one is attended
by the sorrow of all the rest. We all alike come into this world, and
we all alike depart from it. There is one Adam of the earth, and
another from heaven. The earthly Adam is on the left hand, and will
perish: the heavenly Adam is on the right hand, and will be saved. He
who says to his brother, ‘thou fool,’ and
‘raca,’ will be in danger of Gehenna. And the
murderer and the adulterer will likewise be sent into Gehenna. In times
of persecution some are burnt, some strangled, some beheaded, some
flee, or die within the walls of a prison: the struggle varies in kind,
but the victors’ crown is one. No difference was made between the
son who had never left his father, and his brother who was welcomed as
a returning penitent. To the labourers of the first hour, the third,
the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh, the same reward of a penny was
given, and what may perhaps seem still more strange to you, the first
to receive the reward were they who had toiled least in the
vineyard.”
21. Who is there even of God’s elect that would
not be disturbed at these and similar passages of Holy Scripture which
our crafty opponent, with a perverse ingenuity, twists to the support
of his own views? The Apostle John says that many Antichrists had come,
and to make no difference between John himself and the lowest penitent
is the preaching of a real Antichrist. At the same time, I am amazed at
the portentous forms which Jovinianus, as slippery as a snake and like another
Proteus, so rapidly assumes. In sexual intercourse and full feeding he
is an Epicurean; in the distribution of rewards and punishments he all
at once becomes a Stoic, He exchanges Jerusalem for4844
Citium, Judæa for
Cyprus,
Christ
for Zeno. If we may not depart a
hair’s breadth from
virtue, and
all
sins are equal, and a man who in a fit of
hunger steals a piece of
bread is no less
guilty than he who slays a man: you must, in your
turn, be held
guilty of the greatest
crimes. The case is different if
you say that you have no
sin, not even the least, and if, although all
apostles and
prophets and all the
saints (as I have maintained in
dealing with
4845
| 4845 i.e.,
Jovinianus. Jerome for the moment addresses the reader. |
his second
proposition)
bewail their
sinfulness, you alone
boast of your
righteousness. But a minute ago you were barefooted: now you not only
wear shoes, but decorated ones. Just now you wore a
rough coat and a
dirty shirt, you were grimy, and haggard, and your
hand was horny with
toil: now you are clad in linen and silks, and strut like an exquisite
in the fashions of the Atrebates and the Laodiceans. Your cheeks are
ruddy, your
skin sleek, your
hair smoothed down in front and behind,
your
belly protrudes, your shoulders are little
mountains, your
neck
full and so loaded with fat that the half-smothered words can
scarce
make their
escape. Surely in such extremes of
dress and mode of
life
there must be
sin on the one side or the other. I will not assert that
the
sin lies in the
food or
clothing, but that such
fickleness and
changing for the worse is almost censurable in itself. And what we
censure, is
far removed from
virtue; and what is
far from
virtue
becomes the property of vice; and what is
proved to be vicious is one
with
sin. Now
sin, according to you, is placed on the left
hand, and
corresponds to the
goats. You must, therefore, return to your old
habits if you are to be a
sheep on the right
hand; or, if you
perversely
repent of your former views and change them for others,
whether you like it or not, and although you shave off your beard, you
will be reckoned among the
goats.
22. But what is the good of calling a4846
| 4846 Persius I.
128, Conington’s translation. |
one-eyed man Old One-
eye, and of
showing the inconsistency of an assailant, when we have to refute a
whole series of statements? That the
sheep and the
goats on the right
hand and on the left are the two classes of the
righteous and the
wicked, I do not deny. That a good
tree does not bring forth
evil
fruit, nor an
evil one good fruit, no one doubts. The ten
virgins also,
wise and foolish, we divide into good and bad. We are not ignorant that
at the deluge the
righteous were
delivered, and
sinners overwhelmed
with the waters. That at
Sodom and Gomorrha the just man was
rescued,
while the
sinners were consumed by
fire, is clear to everyone. We are
also aware that Egypt was stricken with the ten
plagues, and that
Israel was
saved. Even little
children in our
schools sing how the
righteous passed through the
Red Sea, and
Pharaoh with his
host was
drowned. That six
hundred thousand fell in the
desert because they were
unbelieving, and that two only entered the
land of
promise, is taught
by Scripture; and so is the
rest of your description of the two
classes, good and bad, down to the labourers in the
vineyard. But what
are we to think of your assertion, that because there is a
division
into good and bad, the good, or the bad it may be, are not
distinguished one from another, and that it makes no difference whether
one is a ram in the
flock or a
poor little
sheep? whether the
sheep
have the first or the second fleece? whether the
flock is
diseased and
covered with the scab, or full of
life and vigour?
4847
| 4847 Ezek. xxxiv. 17, 20, 21. |
especially when by the
authoritative utterances of His own
prophet Ezekiel
God clearly points
out the difference between
flock and
flock of His rational
sheep,
saying, “Behold I
judge between
cattle and
cattle, and between
the rams and the he-
goats, and between the fat
cattle and the lean.
Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the
diseased with your
horns, until they were scattered abroad.” And
that we might know what the
cattle were, He immediately added:
4848
“Ye my
flock, the
flock of my
pasture, are men.” Will
Paul and that penitent who had lain with
his
father’s
wife be on an equality, because the latter
repented
and was received into the
Church: and shall the offender because he is
with him on the right
hand shine with the same
glory as the
Apostle?
How is it then that tares and
wheat grow side by side in the same
field
until the
harvest, that is the end of the
world? What is the
significance of good and bad
fish being contained in the
Gospel net?
Why, in
Noah’s
ark, the type of the
Church, are there different
animals with different abodes according to their rank? Why standeth the
queen upon the
Lord’s right
hand, in
raiment of
wrought gold, in
a vesture of
gold? Why had
Joseph, representing
Christ, a coat of many
colours? Why does the
Apostle say to the
Romans:
4849
“According as
God had dealt to
each man a measure of
faith. For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members
have not the same
office: so we, who are many, are one body in
Christ,
and severally members one of another. And having
gifts differing
according to the
grace that was given to us, whether
prophecy, let us
prophesy according to the proportion of our
faith; or ministry, let us
give ourselves to our ministry; or he that teacheth, to his teaching;
or he that exhorteth, to his exhorting: he that giveth, let him do it
with liberality; he that ruleth, with
diligence,” and so on. And
elsewhere:
4850
“One man esteemeth one day
above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be
fully
persuaded in his own
mind.” To the Corinthians he says:
4851
“I have
planted,
Apollos watered:
but
God gave the increase. So then, neither is he that planteth any
thing, neither he that watereth: but
God that giveth the increase. Now
he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall
receive his own
reward according to his own labour. For we are
labourers together with
God, ye are
God’s
husbandry, ye are
God’s
building.” And again elsewhere:
4852
“According to the
grace of
God
which is given unto me, as a
wise master-builder I laid a
foundation,
and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he
buildeth thereupon. For other
foundation can no man lay, than that
which is laid, which is
Jesus Christ. But if any man buildeth on the
foundation,
gold,
silver, costly
stones,
wood, hay,
stubble: each
man’s
work shall be made manifest: for the day shall
reveal it,
because it is
revealed in
fire: and the
fire itself shall
prove each
man’s
work of what sort it is. If any man’s
work shall
abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a
reward. If any
man’s
work shall be
burned, he shall
suffer loss: but he himself
shall be
saved; yet so as through
fire.” If the man whose
work is
burnt and is to
suffer the loss of his labour, while he himself is
saved, yet not without
proof of
fire: it follows that if a man’s
work remains which he has built upon the
foundation, he will be
saved
without
probation by
fire, and consequently a difference is established
between one degree of
salvation and another. Again in another place he
says:
4853
“Let a man so account of
us, as of
ministers of
Christ, and
stewards of the
mysteries of
God.
Here, moreover, it is required in
stewards, that a man be found
faithful.” Would you be assured that between one
steward and
another there is a great difference (I am not speaking of bad and good,
but of the good themselves who stand on the right
hand)? then listen to
the sequel:
4854
“Know ye not that they
which
minister about the sacrifices, eat of the sacrifices, and they
which wait upon the
altar have their portion with the
altar? Even so
did the
Lord ordain that they which
proclaim the
gospel should
live of
the
gospel. But I have used none of these things: and I wrote not these
things that it may be so done in my case: for it were good for me
rather to
die, than that any man should make my glorying
void. For if I
preach the
gospel, I have nothing to
glory of; for necessity is laid
upon me; for woe is unto me if I
preach not the
gospel. For if I do
this of mine own will, I have a
reward: but if not of mine own will, I
have a
steward-
ship intrusted to me. What then is my
reward? That, when
I
preach the
gospel, I may make the
gospel without charge, so as not to
use to the full my right in the
gospel. For though I was free from all
men, I brought myself under
bondage to all, that I might
gain the
more.” You surely cannot say that men
commit sin by living by the
Gospel, and partaking of the sacrifices. Of course not. The
Lord
himself made the rule that they who
preach the
Gospel, should
live by
the
Gospel. But an
Apostle who does not
abuse this
freedom, but labours
with his
hands that he may not be a burden to anyone, and toils
night
and day and
ministers to his companions of course does this, that for
his greater toil he may receive a greater
reward.
23. Let us hasten to what remains.4855
“There are diversities of
gifts,
but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministrations, and
the same
Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but the same
God who worketh all things in all. But to each one is given the
manifestation of the Spirit to
profit withal.” And again:
4856
“As the body is one, and hath
many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one
body: so also is
Christ.” But he precludes you from saying that
the different members of the one body have the same rank; for he
immediately describes the orders of the
Church, and says:
4857
“And
God hath set some in the
Church, first,
apostles; secondly,
prophets; thirdly,
teachers; then
miracles, then
gifts of healings, helps,
governments, divers kinds of
tongues. Are all
apostles? are all
prophets? are all
teachers? are all
workers of
miracles? have all
gifts of healings? do all speak with
tongues? do all
interpret? But desire earnestly the greater
gifts. And
a still more excellent way shew I unto you.” And after
discoursing more in detail of the graces of
charity, he added:
4858
“Whether there be
prophecies,
they shall be done away; whether there be
tongues, they shall cease;
whether there be
knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part,
and we prophesy in part: but when that which is
perfect is come, then
that which is in part shall be done away.” And afterwards we
read:
4859
“But now abideth
faith,
hope,
love, these three; and the greatest of these is
love. Follow after
love; yet desire earnestly
spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may
prophesy.” And again:
4860
“I
would have you all speak with
tongues, but rather that ye should
prophesy: and greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with
tongues.” And again:
4861
“I
thank
God, I speak with
tongues more than you all.” Where there
are different
gifts, and one man is greater, another less, and all are
called
spiritual, they are all certainly
sheep, and they stand on the
right
hand; but there is a difference between one
sheep and another. It
is
humility that leads the
Apostle Paul to say:
4862
“I am the least of the
apostles, that am not meet to be called an
apostle, because I
persecuted the
church of
God. But by the
grace of
God I am what I am:
and his
grace which was bestowed upon me was not found
vain: but I
laboured more
abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the
grace of
God
which was with me.” But the very fact of his thus humbling
himself shows the possibility of there being
apostles of higher or
lower rank, and
God is not
unjust that He will
forget the
work of him
who is called the chosen
vessel of
election, and who laboured more
abundantly than they all, or assign equal
rewards to unequal
deserts.
Afterwards we read,
4863
“As
in
Adam all
die, so also in
Christ shall all be now alive. But each in
his own order.” If each is to rise in his own order, it follows
that those who rise are of different degrees of merit.
4864
“All
flesh is not the same
flesh; but there is one
flesh of men, and another
flesh of
beasts, and
another
flesh of
birds, and another of fishes. There are also celestial
bodies, and bodies
terrestrial: but the
glory of the celestial is one,
and the
glory of the
terrestrial is another. There is one
glory of the
sun, and another
glory of the
moon, and another
glory of the
stars; for
one
star differeth from another
star in
glory. So also is the
resurrection of the dead.” Like a
learned commentator, you have
explained this passage by saying that the
spiritual differ from the
carnal. It follows that in
heaven there will be both
spiritual and
carnal persons, and not only will the
sheep climb thither, but your
goats also. “One
star,” he says, “differeth from
another
star in
glory”: this is not the distinction of
sheep and
goat, but of
sheep and
sheep,
star and
star. Lastly, he says,
“there is one
glory of the sun, and another
glory of the
moon.” But for this, you might maintain that the phrase
one
star from another star covers the whole human race; but he
introduces the sun and
moon, and you cannot possibly reckon them among
the
goats. “So,” says he, “is also the resurrection
of the dead”—the just will shine with the brightness of the
sun, and those of the next rank will glow with the splendour of the
moon, so that one will be a
Lucifer, another an
Arcturus, a third an
Orion, another Mazzaroth, or some other of the
stars whose names are
hollowed in the book of Job.
4865
4866
“For we all,” he says,
“must be made manifest before the
judgment-seat of
Christ; that
each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he
hath done, whether it be good or bad.” And you cannot say that
the mode of our manifestation before the
judgment-seat of
Christ is
such that the good receive good things, the bad
evil things; for he
4867
teaches us in the same
epistle that
he who soweth sparingly shall
reap also sparingly, and he that soweth
bountifully shall
reap also bountifully. Surely he who sows more and he
who sows less are both on the right side. And although they
belong to
the same class, that of the sower, yet they differ in respect of
measure and number. The same
Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says:
4868
“to the intent that now unto
the
principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made
known through the
church the manifold
wisdom of
God.” You observe
that it is a varied and manifold
wisdom of
God which is spoken of as
existing in the different ranks of the
church. And in the same
epistle
we read,
4869
“Unto each one of us was
the
grace given according to the measure of the
grace of
Christ”:
not that
Christ’s measure varies, but only that so much of His
grace is poured out as we can receive.
24. In vain, therefore, do you multiply instances of
sheep and goats, of the five wise and five foolish virgins, of
Egyptians and Israelites, and so forth, because retribution is not in
the present, but will be in the future. Hence we find that the day of
judgment is promised at the end of all things, because the judgment is
not now. For it would be absurd to call the last day the day of
judgment, if God were judging at the present time. Now we sail the
ship, wrestle, and fight, that at last we may reach the haven, be crowned, and
triumph. But you, with no less adroitness than perversity, make the
life of this world illustrate that of the world to come, although we
know full well that here unrighteousness prevails, there,
righteousness:4870
“until
we go into the
sanctuary of
God, and understand the end of those
men.” The
saint does not
die one way, the
sinner another. Those
who
sail the same
sea have the same calm and
storm. A violent
death is
not one thing to the robber, another to the martyr.
Children are not
born one way of
adultery and prostitution, in another of pure
marriage.
Certainly our
Lord and the robbers incurred the same penalty of
crucifixion. If the
judgment of this
world and of that which is to come
be the same, it follows that they who were here crucified side by side,
will also be esteemed of equal rank hereafter.
Paul and they who bound
him, sailed together,
endured the same
storm,
escaped together to the
shore when the
ship was broken with the waves. You cannot deny that the
prisoner and the
keepers were of unequal merit. And what were the
circumstances of that same
shipwreck of the
Apostle and the
soldiers?
The
Apostle Paul afterwards
4871
related a
vision, and said that they who were with him in the
ship had been given
to him by the
Lord. Are we to suppose that he to whom they were given,
and they who were given to him, were of one degree of merit? Ten
righteous men can
save a
sinful city. Lot together with his
daughters
was
delivered from the
fire: his sons-in-
law would also have been
saved, had they been willing to leave the city. Now there was surely a
great difference between Lot and his sons-in-
law. One city out of the
five,
4872
Zoar, was
saved, and a place
which lay under the same sentence as
Sodom, Gomorrha, Admah, and
Zeboiim, was
preserved by the prayers of a holy man. Lot and Zoar were
of different merit, but both of them
escaped the
fire.
4873
The robbers who in the absence of
David had laid waste
Ziklag, and made a prey of the
wives and
children
of the
inhabitants were slain on the third day in the plain, but forty
men mounted on
camels fled. Will you maintain that there was some
difference between those who were slain and those who made good their
escape? We read in the
4874
Gospel that
the
tower of Siloam fell upon eighteen men who
perished in the ruins.
Certainly our Saviour did not regard them as the only
sinners: but they
were
punished to
terrify the
rest: it was like scourging a pestilent
fellow to
teach fools wisdom. If all
sinners are
punished alike, it is
unjust for one to be slain while another is
admonished by his
comrade’s
death.
25. You raise the objection that all Israelites had the
same measure of manna, an homer, and were alike in respect of dress,
and hair, and beard, and shoes; as though we did not all alike partake
of the body of Christ. In the Christian mysteries there is one means of
sanctification for the master and the servant, the noble and the
low-born, for the king and his soldiers, and yet, that which is one
varies according to the merits of those who receive it.4875
“Whosoever shall eat or drink
unworthily shall be
guilty of the body and
blood of the
Lord.”
Does it follow that because
Judas drank of the same
cup as the
rest of
the
apostles, that he and they are of equal merit? But suppose that we
do not choose to receive the sacrament, at all events we all have the
same
life, breathe the same
air, have the same
blood in our veins, are
fed on the same
food. Moreover, if our viands are improved by culinary
skill and are made more palatable for the consumer,
food of this
kind
does not satisfy
nature, but tickles the appetite. We are all alike
subject to
hunger, all alike
suffer with cold: we alike are shrivelled
with the frost, or melted with the broiling
heat. The sun and the
moon,
and all the
company of the
stars, the showers, the whole
world run
their course for us all alike, and, as the
Gospel tells us, the same
refreshing rain falls upon all, good and bad, just and
unjust. If the
present is a picture of the future, then the Sun of
Righteousness will
rise upon
sinners as well as upon the
righteous, upon the
wicked and
the holy, upon the
heathen as well as upon
Jews and
Christians, though
the Scripture says,
4876
“Unto you that
fear the
Lord shall the Sun of
Righteousness
arise.” If He will rise to those that
fear, He will set to the
despisers and the false
prophets. The
sheep which stand on the right
hand will be brought into the
kingdom of
heaven, the
goats will be
thrust down to
hell. The
parable does not contrast the
sheep one with
another, or on the other
hand the
goats, but merely makes a difference
between
sheep and
goats. The whole
truth is not taught in a single
passage: we must always bear in
mind the exact point of an
illustration. For instance, the ten
virgins are not examples of the
whole human race, but of the careful and the
slothful: the former are
ever anticipating the
advent of our
Lord, the latter abandon themselves
to idle
slumber without a thought of future
judgment. And so at the end
of the
parable it is said,
4877
“Watch, for ye know not the day, nor the hour.” If at the deluge
Noah
was
delivered, and the whole
world perished, all men were
flesh, and
therefore were
destroyed. You must either say that the sons of
Noah and
Noah for whose sake they were
delivered were of unequal merit, or you
must place the accursed
Ham in the same rank as his
father because he
was
delivered with him from the
flood. At the passion of
Christ all
wavered, all were
unprofitable together: there was none that did good,
no not one. Will you therefore
dare to say that Peter and the
rest of
the
Apostles who fled denied the Saviour in the same sense as Caiaphas
and the
Pharisees and the people who
cried out,
4878
“Crucify him, crucify
him”? And, to say no more about the
Apostles, do you think Annas
and Caiaphas, and
Judas the
traitor guilty of no greater
crime than
Pilate who was compelled against his will to give sentence against our
Lord? The guilt of
Judas is proportioned to his former merit, and the
greater the guilt, the greater the penalty too.
4879
“For the
mighty shall
mightily suffer torment.” An
evil tree does not bear good fruit,
nor a good
tree evil fruit. If this be so, tell me how it was that
Paul
though he was an
evil tree and
persecuted the
Church of
Christ,
afterwards bore good fruit? And
Judas, though he was a good
tree and
wrought miracles like the other
Apostles, afterwards turned
traitor and
brought forth
evil fruit? The
truth is that a good
tree does not bear
evil fruit, nor an
evil tree good fruit, so long as they continue in
their
goodness, or badness. And if we read that every Hebrew keeps the
same
Passover, and that in
4880
the seventh
year every
prisoner is set free, and that at Jubilee, that is the
fiftieth year,
4881
every
possession returns to its owner, all this refers not to the present,
but to the future; for being in
bondage during the six days of this
world, on the seventh day, the true and
eternal Sabbath, we shall be
free, at any rate if we wish to be free while still in
bondage in the
world. If, however, we do not desire it, our
ear will be bored in token
of our
disobedience, and together with our
wives and
children, whom we
preferred to
liberty, that is, with the
flesh and its works, we shall
be in perpetual
slavery.
26. As for the parable of the sower which makes both
good and bad ground bear a triple crop, and the passage from the
apostle in which upon Christ as the foundation one man builds gold,
silver, costly stones, another wood, hay, stubble, the meaning is
perfectly clear. We know that in a great house there are different
vessels, and to wish to contradict so plain a truth would be sheer
impudence. Yet that Jovinianus may not triumph in a lie and quote the
instance of the apostles by way of discrediting the hundred fold, sixty
fold, and thirty fold, let me inform him that in4882
| 4882 S. Matt. xix. 29; S. Mark x. 30; S. Luke xviii.
30. In S. Matthew some
authorities agree with S. Luke in reading
“manifold.” |
Matthew and Mark a
hundred fold is
promised to the
apostles who had left all. And I would tell him
further, that in the
Gospel of Luke we find
much more, that is
πολύ
πλείονα, and that there is
absolutely no instance in the Gospels of a
hundred standing for
seven; and that he is
convicted either of forgery, or of
ignorance; and that our cause is not prejudiced by the fact that in one
Gospel the enumeration begins at a
hundred, in another at thirty, since
it is a rule with all Scripture, and especially with the older
writings, to put the lowest number first and so ascend by degrees to
the higher. For instance, suppose one to say that so-and-so lived five
and seventy and a
hundred years, it does not follow that five and
seventy are more than a
hundred because they were first mentioned. If
you do not on the side of good admit the difference between a
hundred,
sixty, and thirty, neither will you do so on the side of
evil, and the
seed which fell by the wayside, upon the
rock, and among
thorns, will
be equally faulty. But if the former three, or the latter three, on the
side of good, or on the side of
evil respectively, are one and the
same, it was foolish instead of speaking of two things to enumerate six
kinds, and all the more because according to the account of the
parable
in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Saviour always added: “He that
hath
ears to hear, let him hear.” Where there is no
deep inner
meaning, it is useless to draw our attention to the mystic sense.
27. You give it as your opinion that, since the Father
and the Son make their abode with the faithful, and since Christ is
their guest, nothing is lacking. I suppose, however, that
Christ’s abiding with the Corinthians was one thing, with the
Ephesians another: it was one thing, I say, for Him to abide with those
whom Paul blamed for many sins, another for Him to dwell with those to
whom the apostle revealed mysteries hidden from the beginning of the
world; one thing for Him to be in Titus and Timothy, another in Paul.
Certainly amongst them that have been born of women, there has not
arisen a greater than John the Baptist. But the term greater implies
others who are less. And4883
“he who is least in the
kingdom of
heaven is greater than
he.” You see then that in
heaven one is greatest and another is
least, and that among the
angels and the
invisible creation there is a manifold and
infinite
diversity. Why do the
apostles say:
4884
“
Lord, increase our
faith,” if there is one measure for all? And why did our
Lord
rebuke His
disciple, saying:
4885
“O
thou of little
faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” In Jeremiah
also we read concerning the future
kingdom:
4886
“Behold, the days come, saith
the
Lord, that I will make a new
covenant with the
house of
Israel, and
with the
house of
Judah not according to the
covenant that I made with
their fathers.” And so on after:
4887
“I will put my
law in their
inward parts, and in their
heart will I
write it; and I will be their
God and they shall be my people: and they shall
teach no more every man
his neighbour, and every man his
brother, saying, Know the
Lord: for
they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of
them.” The context of this passage clearly shows that the
prophet
is describing the future
kingdom, and how can there possibly be in it a
least or greatest, if all are to be equal? The
secret is disclosed in
the
Gospel:
4888
“Whosoever shall do
and
teach, he shall be called great in the
kingdom of
heaven: but
whosoever shall
teach, and not do, shall be least.”
4889
The Saviour taught us at a
feast to
take the lowest place, lest, when one greater than us came, we should
be thrust with disgrace from the higher place. If we cannot fall, but
only raise ourselves by penitence, what is the meaning of the ladder at
Bethel, on which the
angels come from
heaven to
earth and descend as
well as ascend? Surely while on that ladder they are reckoned among the
sheep and stand on the right
hand. There are
angels who descend from
heaven; but Jovinianus is sure that they retain their inheritance.
28. But when Jovinianus supposes that the many mansions
in our Father’s house are churches scattered throughout the
world, who can refrain from laughing; since Scripture plainly teaches
in John’s Gospel that our Lord was discoursing not of the number
of the churches, but of the heavenly mansions, and the eternal
tabernacles for which the prophet longed?4890
“In my
Father’s
house,” He says, “are many
mansions: if it were not so, I
would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go
and prepare a place for you I will come again, and will receive you
unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” The place
and the
mansions which
Christ says He would prepare for the
apostles
are of course in the
Father’s
house, that is, in the
kingdom of
heaven, not on
earth, where for the present He was leading the
apostles. And at the same time regard must be had to the sense of
Scripture: “I might tell you,” He says, “that I go to
prepare a place for you, if there were not many
mansions in my
Father’s
house, that is to say, if each individual did not
prepare for himself a
mansion through his own works rather than receive
it through the
bounty of
God. The
preparation is therefore not mine,
but yours.” This view is supported by the fact that it
profited
Judas nothing to have a place prepared, since he lost it by his own
fault. And we must
interpret in the same way what our
Lord says to the
sons of
Zebedee, one of whom wished to sit on His left
hand, the other
on His right:
4891
“My
cup
indeed ye shall drink: but to sit on my right
hand, and on my left
hand, is not mine to give, but it is for them for whom it hath been
prepared of my
Father.” It is not the Son’s to give; how
then is it the
Father’s to prepare? There are, He says, prepared
in
heaven, many different
mansions, destined for many different
virtues, and they will be awarded not to persons, but to persons’
works. In
vain therefore do you ask of me what rests with yourselves, a
reward which my
Father has prepared for those whose
virtues will
entitle them to rise to such
dignity. Again when He says:
4892
“I will come again, and will
receive you unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also,”
He is speaking especially to the
apostles, concerning whom it is
elsewhere written, “That as I and thou,
Father, are one, so they
also may be one in us,” inasmuch as they have believed, have been
perfected, and can say,
4893
“the
Lord is my portion.” If, however, there are
not many
mansions, how is it taught in the Old Testament correspondingly with
the New, that the
chief priest has one rank, the
priests another, the
Levites another, the
door-
keepers another, the sacristans another? How
is it that in the
4894
book of
Ezekiel, where a description is given of the future
Church and of the
heavenly
Jerusalem, the
priests who have
sinned are degraded to the
rank of sacristans and doorkeepers, and although they are in the
temple
of
God, that is on the right
hand, they are not among the rams, but
among the poorest of the
sheep? How again is it that in the
river which
flows from the
temple, and replenishes the
salt sea, and gives new
life
to everything, we read there are many kinds of
fish? Why do we read
that in the
kingdom of
heaven there are
Archangels,
Angels,
Thrones,
Dominions, Powers,
Cherubim and Seraphim, and every name which is
named, not only in this present
world, but also that which is to come?
A difference of name is meaningless
where there is not a difference of rank. An
Archangel is of course an
Archangel to other inferior
angels, and Powers, and
Dominions have
other spheres over which they
exercise authority. This is what we find
in
heaven and in the administration of
God. You must not therefore
smile and sneer at us, as is your wont, for making a graduated series
of
emperors, præfects and
counts, tribunes and centurions,
companies, and all the other steps in the service.
29. It is mere trifling to quote the passage:4895
“Know ye not that your bodies
are a
temple of the Holy
Ghost,” for it is customary in Holy
Scripture to speak of a single object as though it were many, and of
many as though they were one. And Jovinianus himself should know that
even in a
temple there are many
divisions—the outer and the inner
courts, the vestibules, the holy place, and the Holy of Holies. There
are also in a
temple kitchens, pantries,
oil-
cellars, and cupboards for
the
vessels. And so in the
temple of our body there are different
degrees of merit.
God does not dwell in all alike, nor does He impart
Himself to all in the same degree. A portion of the spirit of
Moses was
taken and given to the seventy
elders. I suppose there is a difference
between the
abundance of the
river, and that of the rivulets.
4896
Elijah’s spirit was given in
double measure to
Elisha, and thus double
grace wrought greater
miracles.
Elijah while living restored a dead man to
life;
Elisha after
death did the same.
Elijah invoked
famine on the people;
Elisha in a
single day put the
enemy’s forces in the
power of the city which
they besieged. No doubt the words, “Know ye not that your bodies
are a
temple of the Holy
Ghost,” refer to the whole
assembly of
the
faithful, who, joined together, make up the one body of
Christ. But
the
question now is, who in the body is worthy to be the
feet of
Christ, and who the head? who is His
eye, and who His
hand?—a
distinction indicated by the
4897
| 4897 S. Luke vii., S. Matt. xxvi., S. Mark xiv., S.
John xii. |
two
women
in the
Gospel, the penitent and the holy
woman, one of whom held His
feet, the other His head. Some
authorities, however, think there was
only one
woman, and that she who began at His
feet gradually advanced
to His head. Jovinianus further urges against us our
Lord’s
words,
4898
“I
pray not for these
only, but also for those who shall believe on me through their word:
that as I,
Father, in thee and thou in me are one, so they all may be
one in us,” and reminds us that the whole
Christian people is one
in
God, and, as His well-
beloved sons, are
4899
“partakers of the
divine
nature.” We have already said, and the
truth must now be
inculcated more in detail, that we are not one in the
Father and the
Son according to
nature, but according to
grace. For the essence of the
human
soul and the essence of
God are not the same, as the
Manichæans constantly assert. But, says our
Lord:
4900
“Thou hast
loved them as thou hast
loved me.” You see, then, that we are privileged to partake of
His essence, not in the realm of
nature, but of
grace, and the reason
why we are
beloved of the
Father is that He has
loved the Son; and the
members are
loved, those namely of the body.
4901
“For as many as received
Christ, to
them gave He
power to become sons of
God, even to them that believe on
His name: which were
born not of
blood, nor of the will of the
flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of
God.” The Word was made
flesh that
we might pass from the
flesh into the Word. The Word did not cease to
be what He had been; nor did the human
nature lose that which it was by
birth. The
glory was increased, the
nature was not changed. Do you ask
how we are made one body with
Christ? Your creator shall be your
instructor:
4902
“He that eateth my
flesh and
drinketh my
blood abideth in me, and I in him. As the living
Father
sent me, and I
live because of the
Father, so he that eateth me, he
also shall
live because of me. This is the
bread which came down out of
heaven.” But the
Evangelist John, who had drunk in
wisdom from
the
breast of
Christ, agrees herewith, and says:
4903
“Hereby know we that we
abide in
him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. Whosoever
shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of
God,
God abideth in him, and he
in
God.” If you believe in
Christ, as the
apostles believed, you
shall be made one body with them in
Christ. But, if it is rash for you
to claim for yourself a
faith and works like theirs when you have not
the same
faith and works, you cannot have the same place.
30. You repeat the words bride, sister, mother, and
affirm that all these are titles of the one Church and names applied to
all believers. The fact goes against you. For if the Church admits but
one rank, and has not many members in one body, what necessity is there
for calling her bride, sister, mother? It must be that she is the bride
of some, the sister of others, the mother of others. All indeed stand
on the right hand, but one stands as a bridegroom, another as a
brother, a third as a son.4904
“My little
children” says the
Apostle, “of whom I am again in
travail
until
Christ be formed in
you.” Do you think that the
children who are being
born and the
apostle who is in
travail are of equal rank? And the
folly of your
contention that we
love all the members alike, and do not prefer the
eye to the
finger, nor the
hand to the
ear, but that if one be lost all
mourn, is
proved by the lesson which the
apostle teaches the
Corinthians:
4905
“Some
members are more honourable, others excite the sense of
shame: and
those parts to which
shame attaches are
clothed with more
abundant
honour; whereas our
comely parts have no need of our care.” Do
you think that the mouth and the
belly, the
eyes and the outlets of the
body are to be classed together as of equal merit?
4906
“The
lamp of thy body,” he
says, “is thine
eye. If thine
eye be
blinded, thy whole body is
in
darkness.” If you
cut off a
finger, or the tip of the
ear,
there is indeed
pain, but the loss is not so great, nor is the
disfigurement attended by so much
pain as it would be were you to take
out the
eyes, mutilate the nose, or saw through a
bone. Some members we
can dispense with and yet
live: without others
life is an
impossibility. Some offences are
light, some heavy. It is one thing to
owe ten
thousand talents, another to owe a
farthing. We shall have to
give account of the idle word no less than of
adultery; but it is not
the same thing to be put to the blush, and to be put upon the rack, to
grow
red in the face and to ensure lasting
torment. Do you think I am
merely expressing my own views? Hear what the
Apostle John says:
4907
“He who knows that his
brother
sinneth a
sin not unto
death, let him ask, and he shall give him
life,
even to him that sinneth not unto
death. But he that hath
sinned unto
death, who shall
pray for him?” You observe that if we entreat
for smaller offences, we obtain pardon: if for greater ones, it is
difficult to obtain our request: and that there is a great difference
between
sins. And so with respect to the people of
Israel who had
sinned a
sin unto
death, it is said to Jeremiah:
4908
“
Pray not thou for this people,
neither entreat for them, and do not withstand me, for I will not hear
thee.” Moreover, if it be true that we all alike enter the
world
and all alike leave it, and this is a precedent for the
world to come,
it follows that whether
righteous or
sinners we shall all be equally
esteemed by
God, because the conditions of our
birth and
death are now
the same. And if you
contend that there are two Adams, the one of the
earth, the other from
heaven; and that they who were in the earthly
Adam stand on the left
hand, those who were in the heavenly are on the
right
hand, before we go further, let me ask you a
question concerning
two
brothers: Was
Esau in the earthly
Adam, or in the heavenly? No one
doubts that you will reply, he was in the earthly. In which was
Jacob?
Without hesitation you will say, in the heavenly. How then was he in
the heavenly when
Christ had not yet come in the
flesh—
Christ who
is called the second
Adam from
heaven? You must either reckon all
before the
incarnation of
Christ in the old
Adam, and even the just in
the man from the
earth, and then they will be on the left among your
goats; or, if it be impious to give
Isaac the same place as
Ishmael,
Jacob as
Esau, the
saints as
sinners, the last
Adam will date from the
time when
Christ was
born of a
Virgin, and your argument from the two
Adams will not benefit your
sheep and
goats, because we have
proved
that in the first
Adam there were both
sheep and
goats, and that of
those who were in one and the same man, some stood on the right
hand of
God, others on the left:
4909
“For from
Adam even until
Moses death reigned over all, even over them that had
not
sinned after the likeness of
Adam’s
transgression.”
31. As regards your attempt to show that railing and
murder, the use of the expression raca and adultery, the idle
word and godlessness, are rewarded with the same punishment, I have
already given you my reply, and will now briefly repeat it. You must
either deny that you are a sinner if you are not to be in danger of
Gehenna: or, if you are a sinner you will be sent to hell for even a
light offence:4910
“The mouth
that lieth,” says one, “
kills the
soul.” I suspect
that you, like other men, have occasionally told a
lie:
4911
| 4911 Ps. cxvi. 11; Rom. iii. 4. |
for all men are
liars, that
God alone may
be true,
4912
and that He may be justified in
His words, and may
prevail when He judges. It follows either that you
will not be a man lest you be found a
liar: or if you are a man and are
consequently a
liar, you will be
punished with parricides and
adulterers. For you admit no difference between
sins, and the gratitude
of those whom you raise from the mire and set on high will not equal
the
rage against you of those whom for the trifling offences of
daily
life you have thrust into utter
darkness. And if it be so that in a
persecution one is stifled, another
beheaded, another flees, or the
fourth
dies within the walls of a
prison, and one
crown of
victory
awaits various kinds of struggle, the fact tells in our favour. For in
martyrdom it is the will, which gives occasion to the
death, that is
crowned. My
duty is to
resist the
frenzy of the
heathen, and not deny the
Lord. It rests with them either
to
behead, or to
burn, or to shut up in
prison, or enforce various
other penalties. But if I
escape, and
die in solitude, there will not
at my
death be the same
crown for me as for them, because the
confession of
Christ will not have been to me as to them the cause of
death. As for your remark that absolutely no difference was made
between the
brother who had always been with his
father, and him who
was afterwards welcomed as a penitent, I am willing to add, if you
like, that the one drachma which was lost and was found was put with
the others, and that the one
sheep which the good
shepherd, leaving the
ninety and nine, sought and brought back, made up the full tale of a
hundred. But it is one thing to be a penitent, and with
tears sue for
pardon, another to be always with the
father. And so both the
shepherd
and the
father say by the mouth of Ezekiel to the
sheep that was
carried back, and to the son that was lost,
4913
“And I will establish my
covenant
with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the
Lord: that thou mayest
remember, and be
confounded, and never open thy mouth ever more,
because of thy
shame, when I have
forgiven thee all that thou hast
done.” That penitents may have their due it is enough for them to
feel
shame instead of all other
punishment. Hence in another place it
is said to them,
4914
“Then
shall ye remember your
evil ways, and all the
crimes wherewith ye were
defiled, and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the
wickedness that ye have done; and ye shall know that I am the
Lord,
when I shall have done you good for my name’s sake, and not
according to your
evil ways, nor according to your
evil doings.”
The son, moreover, was reproved by his
father for envying his
brother’s deliverance, and for being
tormented by
jealousy while
the
angels in
heaven were rejoicing. The parallel, however, is not to
be drawn between the merits of the two sons (one of whom was temperate,
the other a prodigal) and those of the whole human race, but the
characters depicted are either
Jews and
Christians, or
saints and
penitents. In the lifetime of
Bishop Damasus I
dedicated to him a
small
treatise upon this
parable.
4915
32. And if a penny was given to all the labourers, those
of the first, the third, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh hours,
and they came first for the reward who were the last to work in the
vineyard, even here the persons described do not belong to one time or
one age, but from the beginning of the world to the end of it there are
different calls and a special meaning attaches to each. Abel and Seth
were called at the first hour: Enoch and Noah at the third: Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob at the sixth: Moses and the prophets at the ninth: at
the eleventh the Gentiles, to whom the recompense was first given
because they believed on the crucified Lord, and inasmuch as it was
hard for them to believe they earned a great reward. Many kings and
prophets have desired to see the things that we see, and have not seen
them. But the one penny does not represent one reward, but one life,
and one deliverance from Gehenna. And as by the favour of the sovereign
those guilty of various crimes are released from prison, and each one,
according to his toil and exertions, is in this or that condition of
life, so too the penny, as it were by the favour of our Sovereign, is
the discharge from prison of us all by baptism. Now our work is,
according to our different virtues, to prepare for ourselves a
different future.
33. So far I have replied to the separate portions of
his argument; I shall now address myself to the general question. Our
Lord says to his disciples,4916
“Whosoever would become great
among you, let him be least of all.” If we are all to be equal in
heaven, in
vain do we
humble ourselves here that we may be greater
there. Of the two
debtors who owed, one five
hundred pence, the other
fifty, he to whom most was
forgiven loved most. And so the Saviour
says,
4917
“I say to you, her
sins
which are many are
forgiven her, for she hath
loved much. But to whom
little is
forgiven, the same loveth little.” He who
loves little,
and has little
forgiven, he will of course be of inferior rank.
4918
The householder when he set out
delivered to his
servants his goods, to one five talents, to another
two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Just as in
another
Gospel it is written that a nobleman setting out for a
far
country to receive for himself a
kingdom and return, called the
servants, and gave them each a sum of
money, with which one
gained ten
pounds, another five, and they, each according to his ability and the
gain he had made, received ten or five cities. But one who had received
a
talent, or a pound, buried it in the ground, or tied it up in a
napkin, and kept it until his master’s return. Our first thought
is that if, according to the modern Zeno, the
righteous do not toil in
hope of
reward, but to
avoid the loss of what they already have, he who
buried his pound or
talent that he might not lose it, did no wrong,
and the caution of him who kept his
money is worthy of more
praise than the fruitless toil of those who
wore themselves out and yet received no
reward for their labour. Then
observe that the very
talent which was taken from the timid or
negligent
servant, was not given to him who had the smaller
profit, but
to him who had
gained the most, that is, to him who had been placed
over ten cities. If difference of rank is not constituted by the
difference in number, why did our
Lord say, “He gave to everyone
according to his ability”? If the
gain of five talents and ten
talents is the same, why were not ten cities given to him who
gained
the least, and five to him who
gained the most? But that our
Lord is
not satisfied with what we have, but always desires more, He himself
shows by saying, “Wherefore didst thou not give my
money to the
money-changers, that so when I came I might have received it with
usury?” The
Apostle Paul understood this, and
4919
forgetting those things which were
behind, reached forward to those things which were in front, that is,
he made
daily progress, and did not keep the
grace given to him
carefully wrapped up in a
napkin, but his spirit, like the capital of a
keen man of
business, was
renewed from day to day, and if he were not
always growing larger, he thought himself growing less. Six cities of
refuge are mentioned in the
law,
provided for fugitives who were
involuntary homicides, and the cities themselves belonged to the
priests. I should like to ask whether you would put those fugitives
among your
goats, or among our
sheep. If they were
goats, they would be
slain like other homicides, and would not enter the cities of
God’s
ministers. If you say they were
sheep, they will not
possibly be such
sheep as can
enjoy full
liberty and
feed without
fear
of
wolves. And it will be plain to you that
sheep indeed they are, but
wandering
sheep: that they are on the right
hand, but do not stand
there: they
flee until the High
Priest dies and descending into
hell
liberates their
souls. The Gibeonites met the
children of
Israel, and
although other
nations were slaughtered, they were kept
4920
for hewers of
wood and drawers of
water.
4921
And of such value were they in
God’s
eyes, that the
family of
Saul was
destroyed for the wrong
done to them. Where would you put them? Among the
goats? But they were
not slain, and they were
avenged by the determination of
God. Among the
sheep? But holy Scripture says they were not of the same merit as the
Israelites. You see then that they do indeed stand on the right
hand,
but are of a
far inferior grade.
Jonathan came between
David, the holy
man, and
Saul, the worst of kings, and we can neither place him among
the kids because he was worthy of a
prophet’s
love, nor amongst
the rams lest we make him equal to
David, and particularly when we know
that he was slain. He will, therefore, be among the
sheep, but low
down. And just as in the case of
David and
Jonathan, you will be bound
to recognize differences between
sheep and
sheep.
4922
“That
servant, which knew his
lord’s will, and made not ready, nor did according to his will,
shall be beaten with many
stripes; but he that knew not, and did things
worthy of
stripes, shall be beaten with few
stripes. And to whomsoever
much is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom they
commit
much, of him will they ask the more.” Lo! more or less is
committed to different
servants, and according to the
nature of the
trust, as well as of the
sin, is the number of
stripes inflicted.
34. The whole account of the land of Judah and of the
tribes is typical of the church in heaven. Let us read Joshua the son
of Nun, or the concluding portions of Ezekiel, and we shall see that
the historical division of the land as related by the one finds a
counterpart in the spiritual and heavenly promises of the other. What
is the meaning of the seven and eight steps in the description of the
temple? or again, what significance attaches to the fact that in the
Psalter, after being taught the mystic alphabet by the4923
| 4923 Ps. cxix. in our arrangement of the Psalter. The
psalm is divided into twenty-two portions, which begin with the
successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The following fifteen psalms
are called in our Authorized Version, Songs of Degrees (Vulgate,
graduum, steps). For the origin of the title, Wordsworth, or Neal and
Littledale on Ps. cxx. may be consulted. |
one
hundred and eighteenth psalm we
arrive by fifteen steps at the point where we can
sing:
4924
“Behold, now
bless the
Lord, all
ye
servants of the
Lord: ye who stand in the
house of the
Lord, in the
courts of the
house of our
God.” Why did
4925
two
tribes and a half dwell on the other
side of
Jordan, a
district abounding in
cattle, while the remaining
nine
tribes and a half either drove out the old
inhabitants from their
possessions, or dwelt with them? Why did the
tribe of
Levi4926
receive no portion in the
land, but
have the
Lord for their portion? And how is it that of the
priests and
Levites, themselves, the
4927
high
priest
alone entered the Holy of Holies where were the
cherubim and the
mercy-seat? Why did the other
priests wear
4928
linen
raiment only, and not have
their
clothing of
wrought gold,
blue,
scarlet,
purple, and fine
cloth? The
priests and
4929
Levites of the lower order took care of
the
oxen and wains: those of the higher order carried the
ark of the
Lord on their shoulders. If you do away with the gradations of the
tabernacle, the
temple, the
Church, if, to use a common military
phrase, all upon the right
hand are to be “up to the same
standard,”
bishops are to no purpose,
priests in
vain,
deacons
useless. Why do
virgins persevere?
widows toil? Why do
married women
practise continence? Let us all
sin, and when once we have
repented, we
shall be on the same footing as the
apostles.
35. But now we have just sighted land: the foaming
billows have been rolling mountain-high: our ship has been borne aloft,
or has rushed headlong into the depths beneath: little by little the
haven opens to the view of the weary and exhausted sailors. We have
discussed the married, widows, and virgins. We have preferred virginity
to widowhood, widowhood to marriage. The passage of the apostle, in
which he treats questions of this kind, has been expounded, and
particular objections have been met. We also took a survey of secular
literature, and inquired what was thought of virgins, and what of those
who had one husband; and by way of contrast we pointed out the cares
which sometimes attend wedlock. Then we passed to the second division,
in which our opponent denies the possibility of sinning to those who
have been baptized with complete faith. And we showed that God alone is
faultless, and every creature is at fault, not because all have sinned,
but because all may sin, and those who stand have cause to fear when
they see the fall of men like themselves. In the third place we came to
fasting, and inasmuch as our opponent’s argument fell under two
heads, and he appealed either to philosophy, or to Holy Scripture, we
also furnished a several reply. In the fourth, that is the last
section, the sheep and goats on the right hand and the left, the
righteous and the wicked, were distributed into two classes, the
intention being to show that there is no difference between one just
man and another, or between one sinner and another. To prove the point
Jovinianus had accumulated countless instances from Scripture which
apparently favoured his view, and this contention we rebutted both by
arguments and illustrations from Scripture, and pulverized Zeno’s
old opinion no less with common sense than with the words of
inspiration.
36. I must in conclusion say a few words to our modern
Epicurus wantoning in his gardens with his favourites of both sexes. On
your side are the fat and the sleek in their festal attire. If I may
mock like Socrates, add if you please, all swine and dogs, and, since
you like flesh so well, vultures too, eagles, hawks, and owls. We shall
never be afraid of the host of4930
| 4930 Aristippus though
the disciple of Socrates, taught that pleasure was the highest
good. |
Aristippus. If ever I see a fine fellow,
or a man who is no
stranger to the curling-irons, with his
hair nicely
done and his cheeks all aglow, he
belongs to your
herd, or rather
grunts in concert with your pigs. To our
flock belong the
sad, the
pale, the meanly clad, who, like
strangers in this
world, though their
tongues are
silent, yet speak by their
dress and bearing.
4931
“Woe is me,” say they,
“that my sojourning is
prolonged! that I dwell among the tents of
Kedar!” that is to say, in the
darkness of this
world, for the
light shineth in the
darkness, and the
darkness comprehended it not.
Boast not of having many
disciples. The Son of
God taught in
Judæa, and only twelve
apostles followed Him.
4932
“I have trodden the
wine-press
alone,” He says, “and of the peoples there was no man with
me.” At the passion He was left alone, and even Peter’s
fidelity to Him wavered: on the other
hand all the people applauded the
doctrine of the
Pharisees, saying,
4933
“Crucify him, crucify him. We have no king but Cæsar,”
that is in effect, we follow vice, not
virtue; Epicurus, not
Christ;
Jovinianus, not the
Apostle Paul. If many assent to your views, that
only indicates voluptuousness; for they do not so much approve your
utterances, as favour their own vices. In our
crowded thoroughfares a
false
prophet may be seen any day stick in
hand belabouring the
fools
about him, and knocking out the teeth of those who offend him, and yet
he never lacks constant followers. And do you regard it as a mark of
great
wisdom if you have a following of many pigs, whom you are feeding
to make pork for
hell? Since you
published your views, and set the mark
of your approval on baths in which the sexes
bathe together, the
impatience which once threw over burning
lust the semblance of a
robe
of modesty has been laid bare and exposed. What was once hidden is now
open to the
gaze of all. You have
revealed your
disciples, such as they
are, not made them. One result of your teaching is that
sin is no
longer even
repented of. Your
virgins whom, with a
depth of
wisdom
never found before in
speech or writing, you have taught the
apostle’s maxim that it is better to marry than to
burn, have
turned
secret adulterers into acknowledged
husbands.
4934
| 4934
Jovinianus’s doctrine is said to have influenced some who had
taken a vow of virginity, to marry. |
It was
not the
apostle, the chosen
vessel, who gave this
advice; it was
Virgil’s
widow:
4935
“She
calls it wedlock; thus she veils her fault.”
37. About four hundred years have passed since the
preaching of Christ flashed upon the world, and during that time in
which His robe has been torn by countless heresies, almost the whole
body of error has been derived from the Chaldæan, Syriac, and
Greek languages. Basilides, the master of licentiousness and the
grossest sensuality, after the lapse of so many years, and like a
second4936
| 4936 Pythagoras
asserted that he had once been the Trojan Euphorbus. |
Euphorbus, was changed by
transmigration into Jovinian, so that the
Latin tongue might have a
heresy of its own. Was there no other
province in the whole
world to
receive the
gospel of
pleasure, and into which the
serpent might
insinuate itself, except that which was founded by the teaching of
Peter, upon the
rock Christ?
Idol temples had fallen before the
standard of the
Cross and the severity of the
Gospel: now on the
contrary
lust and
gluttony endeavour to
overthrow the solid structure
of the
Cross. And so
God says by Isaiah,
4937
“O my people, they which
bless
you cause you to err, and
trouble the paths of your
feet.” Also
by Jeremiah,
4938
“
Flee out of the midst
of
Babylon, and
save every man his
life, and believe not the false
prophets which say,
Peace,
peace, and there is no
peace;” who are
always repeating,
4939
| 4939 Jer. vii. 4; Ps. xiv. 4; liii. 4. |
“The
temple of the
Lord, the
temple of the
Lord.” “Thy
prophets
have seen for thee false and foolish things; they have not laid bare
thine
iniquity that they might call thee to repentance: who
devour
God’s people like
bread: they have not called upon
God.”
Jeremiah
announced the
captivity and was stoned by the people.
4940
Hananiah, the son of Azzur, broke the
bars of
wood for the present, but was preparing bars of
iron for the
future. False
prophets always
promise pleasant things, and please for a
time.
Truth is
bitter, and they who
preach it are filled with
bitterness. For with the
unleavened bread of
sincerity and
truth the
Lord’s
passover is kept, and it is eaten with
bitter herbs.
Admirable are your utterances and worthy of the
ears of the
bride of
Christ standing in the midst of her
virgins, and
widows, and celibates!
(their very name is
4941
| 4941 That is,
cælebs from cælum. |
derived from
the fact that they who
abstain from intercourse are fit for
heaven).
This is what you say: “Fast seldom, marry often. You cannot do
the
work of
marriage unless you take mead, and
flesh, and
solid
food. For
lust strength is required.
Flesh is soon spent and
enervated. You need not be afraid of
fornication. He who has been once
baptized into
Christ cannot fall, for he has the consolation of
marriage to slake his
lust. And if you do fall, repentance will restore
you, and you who were
hypocrites at
baptism may have a firm
faith in
your repentance. Be not disturbed by the thought of a difference
between the
righteous and the penitent, and do not
imagine that pardon
even gives a lower place; rather believe that it takes away your
crown.
For there is one
reward: he who stands on the right
hand shall enter
into the
kingdom of
heaven.” Through
counsels such as these your
swine-
herds are richer than our
shepherds, and the he-
goats draw after
them many of the other sex:
4942
“They
were as fed
horses: they were
mad after
women”: they no sooner
see a
woman than they neigh after her, and,
shame to say! find
scriptural
authority for the consolation of their incontinence. But the
very
women, unhappy creatures! though they deserve no pity, who chant
the words of their instructor (for what does
God require of them but to
become mothers?), have lost not only their chastity, but all sense of
shame, and
defend their licentious practices with an access of
impudence. You have, moreover, in your
army many subalterns, you have
your guardsmen and your skirmishers at the outposts, the round-bellied,
the well-
dressed, the exquisites, and
noisy orators, to
defend you with
tooth and
nail. The
noble make way for you, the
wealthy print kisses on
your face. For unless you had come, the drunkard and the glutton could
not have entered
paradise. All
honor to your
virtue, or rather to your
vices! You have in your
camp, even amazons with uncovered breasts, bare
arms and
knees, who challenge the men who come against them to a
battle
of
lust. Your household is a large one, and so in your aviaries not
only turtle-
doves, but hoopoes are fed, which may
wing their flight
over the whole
field of rank debauchery. Pull me to pieces and scatter
me to the
winds:
tax me with what offences you please:
accuse me of
luxurious and delicate living: you would like me better if I were
guilty, for I should
belong to your
herd.
38. But I will now address myself to you, great Rome,
who with the confession of Christ have blotted out the blasphemy
written on your forehead. Mighty city, mistress-city of the world, city
of the Apostle’s praises, shew the meaning of your name.
Rome is either strength in Greek, or height in
Hebrew. Lose not the excellence
your name implies: let virtue lift you up on high, let not
voluptuousness bring you low. By repentance, as the history of Nineveh
proves, you may escape the curse wherewith the Saviour threatened you
in the Apocalypse. Beware of the name of Jovinianus. It is derived from
that of an idol.4943
The Capitol
is in ruins: the temples of Jove with their ceremonies have perished.
Why should his name and vices flourish now in the midst of you, when
even in the time of Numa Pompilius, even under the sway of kings, your
ancestors gave a heartier welcome to the self-restraint of Pythagoras
than they did under the consuls to the debauchery of Epicurus?
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
