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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 is4664
| 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,” and4667
“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,” and4673
“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, and4677
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
and4689
| 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 that4695
“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 the4705
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 and4720
| 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 aloud4721
‘All things are clean to
the clean, and nothing is to be rejected, if it be received with
thanksgiving,’ and4722
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 the4723
| 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, or4725
| 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 our4726
| 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; the4727
| 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, and4728
| 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.” And4730
“Though
our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by
day.” And4731
“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 commanded4733
| 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 the4739
| 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
barbarous4740
| 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. The4741
| 4741 The Sarmatians
dwelt on the N. E. of the Sea of Azov, E. of the river Don. | Sarmatians,
the4742
| 4742 They were
located in the S. E. of Germany. | Chuadi, the4743
| 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. The4744
| 4744 A people of
Central Asia. Cyrus the Great was slain in an expedition against
them. | Massagetæ and4745
| 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.
The4746
Tibareni crucify those whom they have
loved before when they have grown old. The4747
| 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 called4748
| 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 called4754
| 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 that4755
| 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 forward4756
| 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 the4759
| 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. Whence4762
| 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 of4763
| 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 of4764
| 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, and4772
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
of4773
| 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 of4776
| 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, and4778
| 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 was4786
| 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. In4788
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, and4791
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. And4795
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 Scriptures4800
| 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 the4807
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 he4811
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, or4822
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 indeed4825
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 He4826
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 is4827
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 Peter4828
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 in4831
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 the4832
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 with4845
| 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 he4867
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 afterwards4871
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 the4874
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 in4880
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 the4894
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 the4897
| 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, are4899
“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, and4919
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 kept4920
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 did4925
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, the4927
high priest
alone entered the Holy of Holies where were the cherubim and the
mercy-seat? Why did the other priests wear4928
linen raiment only, and not have
their clothing of wrought gold,
blue, scarlet, purple, and fine cloth? The priests and4929
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 is4941
| 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
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