(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)


Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.


ST. JEROME

LETTERS 39-53

[Translated by The Hon. W. H. Fremantle, M.A., Canon of Canterbury
Cathedral and Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, with the
assistance of the Rev. G. Lewis, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, Vicar of
Dodderhill near Droitwick, and the Rev. W. G. Martley, M.A., of Balliol
College, Oxford.]


LETTER XXXIX: TO PAULA.

Blaesilla died within three months of her conversion, and Jerome now writes
to Paula to offer her his sympathy and, if possible, to moderate her grief.
He asks her to remember that Blaesilla is now in paradise, and so far to
control herself as to prevent enemies of the faith from cavilling at her
conduct. Then he concludes with the prophecy (since more than fulfilled)
that in his writings Blaesilla's name shall never die. Written at Rome in
389 A.D.

   1. "Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears: that
I might weep," not as Jeremiah says, "For the slain of my people,"(7) nor
as Jesus, for the miserable fate of Jerusalem,(8) but for holiness, mercy,
innocence, chastity, and all the virtues, for all are gone now that
Blaesilla is dead. For her sake I do not grieve, but for myself I must; my
loss is too great to be borne with resignation. Who can recall with dry
eyes the glowing faith which induced a girl of twenty to raise the standard
of the Cross, and to mourn the loss of her virginity more than the death of
her husband? Who can recall without a sigh the earnestness of her prayers,
the brilliancy of her conversation, the tenacity of her memory, and the
quickness of her intellect? Had you heard her speak Greek you would have
deemed her ignorant of Latin; yet when she used the tongue of Rome her
words were free from a foreign accent. She even rivalled the great Origen
in those acquirements which won for him the admiration of Greece. For in a
few months, or rather days, she so completely mastered the difficulties of
Hebrew as to emulate her mother's zeal in learning and singing the psalms.
Her attire was plain, but this plainness was not, as it often is, a mark of
pride. Indeed, her self-abasement was so perfect that she dressed no better
than her maids, and was only distinguished from them by the greater ease of
her walk. Her steps tottered with weakness, her face was pale and
quivering, her slender neck scarcely upheld her head. Still she always had
in her hand a prophet or a gospel. As I think of her my eyes fill with
tears, sobs impede my voice, and such is my emotion that my tongue cleaves
to the roof of my mouth. As she lay there dying, her poor frame parched
with burning fever, and her relatives gathered round her bed, her last
words were: "Pray to the Lord Jesus, that He may pardon me, because what I
would have done I have not been able to do." Be at peace, dear Blaesilla,
in full assurance that your garments are always white.(1) For yours is the
purity of an everlasting virginity. I feel confident that my words are
true: conversion can never be too late. The words to the dying robber are a
pledge of this: "Verily I say unto thee, today shall thou be with me in
paradise."(2) When at last her spirit was delivered from the burden of the
flesh, and had returned to Him who gave it;(3) when, too, after her long
pilgrimage, she had ascended up into her ancient heritage, her obsequies
were celebrated with customary splendor. People of rank headed the
procession, a pail made of cloth of gold covered her bier. But I seemed to
hear a voice from heaven, saying: "I do not recognize these trappings; such
is not the garb I used to wear; this magnificence is strange to me."

   2. But what is this? I wish to check a mother's weeping, and I groan
myself. I make no secret of my feelings; this entire letter is written in
tears. Even Jesus wept for Lazarus because He loved him.(4) But he is a
poor comforter who is overcome by his own sighs, and from whose afflicted
heart tears are wrung as well as words. Dear Paula, my agony is as great as
yours. Jesus knows it, whom Blaesilla now follows; the holy angels know it,
whose company she now enjoys. I was her father in the spirit, her foster-
father in affection. Sometimes I say: "Let the day perish wherein I was
born,"(5) and again, "Woe is me, my mother,  that thou hast borne me a man
of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth."(1) I cry: "Righteous
art thou, O Lord ... yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. Wherefore
doth the way of the wicked prosper?"(2) and "as for me, my feet were almost
gone, my steps had well-nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish when
I saw the prosperity of the wicked, and I said: How doth God know? and is
there knowledge in the most high? Behold these are the ungodly who prosper
in the world; they increase in riches."(2) But again I recall other words,
"If I say I will speak thus, behold I should offend against the generation
of thy children."(4) Do not great waves of doubt surge up over my soul as
over yours? How comes it, I ask, that godless men live to old age in the
enjoyment of this world's riches? How comes it that untutored youth and
innocent childhood are cut down while still in the bud? Why is it that
children three years old or two, and even unweaned infants, are possessed
with devils, covered with leprosy, and eaten up with jaundice, while
godless men and profane, adulterers and murderers, have health and strength
to blaspheme God? Are we not told that the unrighteousness of the father
does not fall upon the son,(5) and that "the soul that sinneth it shall
die?"(6) Or if the old doctrine holds good that the sins of the fathers
must be visited upon the children,(7) an old man's countless sins cannot
fairly be avenged upon a harmless infant. And I have said: "Verily, I have
cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the
day long have I been plagued."(8) Yet when I have thought of these things,
like the prophet I have learned to say: "When I thought to know this, it
was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God; then
understood I their end."(9) Truly the judgments of the Lord are a great
deep.(10) "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding
out?"(11) God is good, and all that He does must be good also. Does He
decree that I must lose my husband? I mourn my loss, but because it is His
will I bear it with resignation. Is an only son snatched from me? The blow
is hard, yet it can be borne, for He who has taken away is He who gave.(12)
If I become blind a friend's reading will console me. If I become deaf I
shall escape from sinful words, and my thoughts shall be of God alone. And
if, besides such trials as these, poverty, cold, sickness, and nakedness
oppress me, I shall wait for death, and regard them as passing evils, soon
to give way to a better issue. Let us reflect on the words of the
sapiential psalm: "Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy
judgments."(1) Only he can speak thus who in all his troubles magnifies the
Lord, and, putting down his sufferings to his sins, thanks God for his
clemency.

   The daughters of Judah, we are told, rejoiced, because of all the
judgments of the Lord.(2) Therefore, since Judah means confession, and
since every believing soul confesses its faith,(3) he who claims to believe
in Christ must rejoice in all Christ's judgments. Am I in health? I thank
my Creator. Am I sick? In this case, too, I praise God's will. For "when I
am weak, then am I strong;" and the strength of the spirit is made perfect
in the weakness of the flesh. Even an apostle must bear what he dislikes,
that ailment for the removal of which he besought the Lord thrice. God's
reply was: "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made
perfect in weakness."(4) Lest he should be unduly elated by his
revelations, a reminder of his human weakness was given to him, just as in
the triumphal car of the victorious general there was always a slave to
whisper constantly, amid the cheerings of the multitude, "Remember that
thou art but man."(5)

   3. But why should that be hard to bear which we must one day ourselves
endure? And why do we grieve for the dead? We are not born to live forever.
Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah, Peter, James, and John, Paul, the "chosen
vessel,"(6) and even the Son of God Himself have all died; and are we vexed
when a soul leaves its earthly tenement? Perhaps he is taken away, "lest
that wickedness should alter his understanding ... for his soul pleased the
Lord: therefore hasted he to take him away from the people"(7)-- lest in
life's long journey he should lose his way in some trackless maze. We
should indeed mourn for the dead, but only for him whom Gehenna receives,
whom Tartarus devours, and for whose punishment the eternal fire burns. But
we who, in departing, are accompanied by an escort of angels, and met by
Christ Himself, should rather grieve that we have to tarry yet longer in
this tabernacle of death.(1) For "whilst we are at home in the body, we are
absent from the Lord."(2) Our one longing should be that expressed by the
psalmist: "Woe is me that my pilgrimage is prolonged, that I have dwelt
with them that dwell in Kedar, that my soul hath made a far pilgrimage."(3)
Kedar means darkness, and darkness stands for this present world (for, we
are told, "the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it
not"(4)). Therefore we should congratulate our dear Blaesilla that she has
passed from darkness to light,(5) and has in the first flush of her dawning
faith received the crown of her completed work. Had she been cut off (as f
pray that none may be) while her thoughts were full of worldly desires and
passing pleasures, then mourning would indeed have been her due, and no
tears shed for her would have been too many. As it is, by the mercy of
Christ she, four months ago, renewed her baptism in her vow of widowhood,
and for the rest of her days spurned the world, and thought only of the
religions life. Have you no fear, then, lest the Saviour may say to you:
"Are you angry, Paula, that your daughter has become my daughter? Are you
vexed at my decree, and do you, with rebellious tears, grudge me the
possession of Blaesilla? You ought to know what my purpose is both for you
and for yours. You deny yourself food, not to fast but to gratify your
grief; and such abstinence is displeasing to me. Such fasts are my enemies.
I receive no soul which forsakes the body against my will. A foolish
philosophy may boast of martyrs of this kind; it may boast of a Zeno(6) a
Cleombrotus,(7) or a Cato.(8) My spirit rests only upon him "that is poor
and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word.(9) Is this the
meaning of your vow to me that you would lead a religious life? Is it for
this that you dress yourself differently from other matrons, and array
yourself in the garb of a nun? Mourning is for those who wear silk dresses.
In the midst of your tears the call will come, and you, too, must die; yet
you flee from me as from a cruel judge, and fancy that you can avoid
failing into my hands. Jonah, that headstrong prophet, once fled from me,
yet in the depths of the sea he was still mine.(1) If you really believed
your daughter to be alive, you would not grieve that she had passed to a
better world. This is the commandment that I have given you through my
apostle, that you sorrow not for them that sleep, even as the Gentiles,
which have no hope.(2) Blush, for you are put to shame by the example of a
heathen. The devil's handmaid(3) is better than mine. For, while she
imagines that her unbelieving husband has been translated to heaven, you
either do not or will not believe that your daughter is at rest with me."

   4. Why should I not mourn, you say? Jacob lint on sackcloth for Joseph,
and when all his family gathered round him, refused to be comforted. "I
will go down," he said, "into the grave unto my son mourning."(4) David
also mourned for Absalom, covering his face, and crying: "O my son, Absalom
.. my son, Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son!:(5)
Moses,(6) too, and Aaron,(7) and the rest of the saints were mourned for
with a solemn mourning. The answer to your reasoning is simple. Jacob, it
is true, mourned for Joseph, whom he fancied slain, and thought to meet
only in the grave (his words were: "I will go down into the grave unto my
son mourning"), but he only did so because Christ had not yet broken open
the door of paradise, nor quenched with his blood the flaming sword and the
whirling of the guardian cherubim.(8) (Hence in the story of Dives and
Lazarus, Abraham and the beggar, though really in a place of refreshment,
are described as being in hell.(9)) And David, who, after interceding in
vain for the life of his infant child, refused to weep for it, knowing that
it had not sinned, did well to weep for a son who had been a parricide--in
will, if not in deed.(10) And when we read that, for Moses and Aaron,
lamentation was made after ancient custom, this ought not to surprise us,
for even in the Acts of the Apostles, in the full blaze of the gospel, we
see that the brethren at Jerusalem made great lamentation for Stephen.(11)
This great lamentation, however, refers not to the mourners, but to the
funeral procession and to the crowds which accompanied it. This is what the
Scripture says of Jacob: "Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him
went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the
elders of the land of Egypt, and all the house of Joseph and his brethren";
and a few lines farther on: "And there went up with him both chariots and
horsemen: and it was a great company." Finally, "they mourned with a great
and very sore lamentation."(1) This solemn lamentation does not impose
prolonged weeping upon the Egyptians, but simply describes the funeral
ceremony. In like manner, when we read of weeping made for Moses and
Aaron,(2) this is all that is meant.

   I cannot adequately extol the mysteries of Scripture, nor sufficiently
admire the spiritual meaning conveyed in its most simple words. We are
told, for instance, that lamentation was made for Moses; yet when the
funeral of Joshua is described(3) no mention at all is made of weeping. The
reason, of course, is that under Moses--that is under the old Law--all men
were bound by the sentence passed on Adam's sin, and when they descended
into hell(4) were rightly accompanied with tears. For, as the apostle says,
"death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned."(5)
But under Jesus,(6) that is, under the Gospel of Christ, who has unlocked
for us the gate of paradise, death is accompanied, not with sorrow, but
with joy. The Jews go on weeping to this day; they make bare their feet,
they crouch in sackcloth, they roll in ashes. And to make their
superstition complete, they follow a foolish custom of the Pharisees, and
eat lentils,(7) to show, it would seem, for what poor fare they have lost
their birthright.(8) Of course they are right to weep, for as they do not
believe in the Lord's resurrection they are being made ready for the advent
of antichrist. But we who have put on Christ(9) and according to the
apostle are a royal and priestly race,(10) we ought not to grieve for the
dead. "Moses," the Scripture tells us, "said unto Aaron and unto Eleazar,
and unto Ithamar, his sons that were left: Uncover not your heads, neither
rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the
people."(11) Rend not your clothes, he says, neither mourn as pagans, lest
you die. For, for us sin is death. In this same book, Leviticus, there is a
provision which may perhaps strike some as cruel, yet is necessary to
faith: the high priest is forbidden to approach the dead bodies of his
father and mother, of his brothers and of his children;(1) to the end, that
no grief may distract a soul engaged in offering sacrifice to God, and
wholly devoted to the Divine mysteries. Are we not taught the same lesson
in the Gospel in other words? Is not the disciple forbidden to say farewell
to his home or to bury his dead father?(2) Of the high priest, again, it is
said: "He shall not go out of the sanctuary, and the sanctification of his
God shall not be contaminated, for the anointing oil of his God is upon
him."(2) Certainly, now that we have believed in Christ, and bear Him
within us, by reason of the oil of His anointing which we have received,(4)
we ought not to depart from His temple--that is, from our Christian
profession--we ought not to go forth to mingle with the unbelieving
Gentiles, but always to remain within, as servants obedient to the will of
the Lord.

   5. I have spoken plainly, lest you might ignorantly suppose that
Scripture sanctions your grief; and that, if you err, you have reason on
your side. And, so far, my words have been addressed to the average
Christian woman. But now it will not be so. For in your case, as I well
know, renunciation of the world has been complete; you have rejected and
trampled on the delights of life, and you give yourself daily to fasting,
to reading, and to prayer. Like Abraham,(5) you desire to leave your
country and kindred, to forsake Mesopotamia and the Chaldaeans, to enter
into the promised land. Dead to the world before your death, you have spent
all your mere worldly substance upon the poor, or have bestowed it upon
your children. I am the more surprised, therefore, that you should act in a
manner which in others would justly call for reprehension. You call to mind
Blaesilla's companionship, her conversation, and her endearing ways; and
you cannot endure the thought that you have lost them all. I pardon you the
tears of a mother, but I ask you to restrain your grief. When I think of
the parent I cannot blame you for weeping: but when I think of the
Christian and the recluse, the mother disappears from my view. Your wound
is still fresh, and ant touch of mine, however gentle, is more likely to
inflame than to heal it. Yet why do you not try to overcome by reason a
grief which time must inevitably assuage? Naomi, fleeing because of famine
to the land of Moab, there lost her husband and her sons. Yet when she was
thus deprived of her natural protectors, Ruth, a stranger, never left her
side.(1) And see what a great thing it is to comfort a lonely woman Ruth,
for her reward, is made an ancestress of Christ.(2) Consider the great
trials which Job endured, and you will see that you are over-delicate. Amid
the ruins of his house, the pains of his sores, his countless bereavements,
and, last of all, the snares laid for him by his wife, he still lifted up
his eyes to heaven, and maintained his patience unbroken. I know what you
are going to say "All this befell him as a righteous man, to try his
righteousness." Well, choose which alternative you please. Either you are
holy, in which case God is putting your holiness to the proof; or else you
are a sinner, in which case you have no right to complain. For if so, you
endure far less than your deserts.

   Why should I repeat old stories? Listen to a modern instance. The holy
Melanium,(3) eminent among Christians for her true nobility (may the Lord
grant that you and I may have part with her in His day!), while the dead
body of her husband was still unburied, still warm, had the misfortune to
lose at one stroke two of her sons. The sequel seems incredible, but Christ
is my witness that my words are true. Would you not suppose that in her
frenzy she would have unbound her hair, and rent her clothes, and torn her
breast? Yet not a tear fell from her eyes. Motionless she stood there; then
casting herself at the feet of Christ, she smiled, as though she held Him
with her hands. "Henceforth, Lord," she said, "I will serve Thee more
readily, for Thou hast freed me from a great burden." But perhaps her
remaining children overcame her determination. No, indeed; she set so
little store by them that she gave up all that she had to her only son, and
then, in spite of the approaching winter, took ship for Jerusalem.

   6. Spare yourself, I beseech you, spare Blaesilla, who now reigns with
Christ; at least spare Eustochium, whose tender years and inexperience
depend on you for guidance and instruction. Now does the devil rage and
complain that he is set at naught, because he sees one of your children
exalted in triumph. The victory which he failed to win over her that is
gone he hopes to obtain over her who still remains. Too great affection
towards one's children is disaffection towards God. Abraham gladly prepares
to slay his only son, and do you complain if one child out of several has
received her crown? I cannot say what I am going to say without a groan.
When you were carried fainting out of the funeral procession, whispers such
as these were audible in the crowd. "Is not this what we have often said.
She weeps for her daughter, killed with fasting. She wanted her to marry
again, that she might have grandchildren. How long must we refrain from
driving these detestable monks out of Rome? Why do we not stone them or
hurl them into the Tiber? They have misled this unhappy lady; that she is
not a nun from choice is clear. No heathen mother ever wept for her
children as she does for Blaesilla." What sorrow, think you, must not
Christ have endured when He listened to such words as these! And how
triumphantly must Satan have exulted, eager as he is to snatch your soul!
Luring you with the claims of a grief which seems natural and right, and
always keeping before you the image of Blaesilla, his aim is to slay the
mother of the victress, and then to fall upon her forsaken sister. I do not
speak thus to terrify you. The Lord is my witness that I address you now as
though I were standing at His judgment seat. Tears which have no meaning
are an object of abhorrence. Yours are detestable tears, sacrilegious
tears, unbelieving tears; for they know no limits, and bring you to the
verge of death. You shriek and cry out as though on fire within, and do
your best to put an end to yourself. But to you and others like you Jesus
comes in His mercy and says: "Why weepest thou? the damsel is not dead but
sleepeth."(1) The bystanders may laugh him to scorn; such unbelief is
worthy of the Jews. If you prostrate yourself in grief at your daughter's
tomb you too will hear the chiding of the angel, "Why seek ye the living
among the dead?"(2) It was because Mary Magdalene had done this that when
she recognized the Lord's voice calling her and fell at His feet, He said
to her: "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father;"(3) that is
to say, you are not worthy to touch, as risen, one whom you suppose still
in the tomb.

   7. What crosses and tortures, think you, must not our Blaesilla endure
to see Christ angry with you, though it be but a little! At this moment she
cries to you as you weep: "If ever you loved me, mother, if I was nourished
at your breast, if I was taught by your precepts, do not grudge me my
exaltation, do not so act that we shall be separated forever. Do you fancy
that I am alone? In place of you I now have Mary the mother of the Lord.
Here I see many whom before I have not known. My companions are infinitely
better than any that I had on earth. Here I have the company of Anna, the
prophetess of the Gospel;(1) and--what should kindle in you more fervent
joy--I have gained in three short months what cost her the labor of many
years to win. Both of us widows indeed, we have been both rewarded with the
palm of chastity. Do you pity me because I have left the world behind me?
It is I who should, and do, pity you who, still immured in its prison,
daily fight with. anger, with covetousness, with lust, with this or that
temptation leading the soul to ruin. If you wish to be indeed my mother,
you must please Christ. She is not my mother who displeases my Lord." Many
other things does she say which here I pass over; she prays also to God for
you. For me, too, I feel sure, she makes intercession and asks God to
pardon my sins in return for the warnings and advice that I bestowed on
her, when to secure her salvation I braved the ill will of her family.

   8. Therefore, so long as breath animates my body, so long as I continue
in the enjoyment of life, I engage, declare, and promise that Blaesilla's
name shall be forever on my tongue, that my labors shall be dedicated to
her honor, and that my talents shall be devoted to her praise. No page will
I write in which Blaesilla's name shall not occur Wherever the records of
my utterance shall find their way, thither she, too, will travel with my
poor writings. Virgins, widows, monks and priests, as they read, will see
how deeply her image is impressed upon my mind. Everlasting remembrance
will make up for the shortness of her life. Living as she does with Christ
in heaven, she will live also on the lips of men. The present will soon
pass away and give place to the future, and that future will judge her
without partiality and without prejudice. As a childless widow she will
occupy a middle place between Paula, the mother of children, and Eustochium
the virgin. In my writings she will never die. She will hear me conversing
of her always, either with her sister or with her mother.

LETTER XL: TO MARCELLA.

Onasus, of Segesta, the subject of this letter, was among Jerome's Roman
opponents. He is here held up to ridicule in a manner which reflects little
credit on the writer's urbanity. The date of the letter is 385 A.D.

   1. The medical men called surgeons pass for being cruel, but really
deserve pity. For is it not pitiful to cut away the dead flesh of another
man with merciless knives without being moved by his pangs? Is it not
pitiful that the man who is curing the patient is callous to his
sufferings, and has to appear as his enemy? Yet such is the order of
nature. While truth is always bitter, pleasantness waits upon evil-doing.
Isaiah goes naked without blushing as a type of captivity to come.(1)
Jeremiah is sent from Jerusalem to the Euphrates (a river in Mesopotamia),
and leaves his girdle to be marred in the Chaldaean camp, among the
Assyrians hostile to his people.(2) Ezekiel is told to eat bread made of
mingled seeds and sprinkled with the dung of men and cattle.(3) He has to
see his wife die without shedding a tear.(4) Amos is driven from
Samaria.(5) Why is he driven from it? Surely in this case as in the others,
because he was a spiritual surgeon, who cut away the parts diseased by sin
and urged men to repentance. The apostle Paul says: "Am I therefore become
your enemy because I tell you the truth?"(6) And so the Saviour Himself
found it, from whom many of the disciples went back because His sayings
seemed hard.(7)

   2. It is not surprising, then, that by exposing their faults I have
offended many. I have arranged to operate on a cancerous nose;(8) let him
who suffers from wens tremble. I wish to rebuke a chattering daw; let the
crow realize that she is offensive.(9) Yet, after all, is there but one
person in Rome

   "Whose nostrils are disfigured by a scar?"(10)

Is Onasus of Segesta alone in puffing out his cheeks like bladders and
balancing hollow phrases on his tongue?

   I say that certain persons have, by crime, perjury, and false
pretences, attained to this or that high position. How does it hurt you who
know that the charge does not touch you? I laugh at a pleader who has no
clients, and sneer at a penny-a-liner's eloquence. What does it matter to
you who are such a refined speaker? It is my whim to inveigh against
mercenary priests. You are rich already, why should you be angry? I wish to
shut up Vulcan and burn him in his own flames. Are you his guest or his
neighbor that you try to save an idol's shrine from the fire? I choose to
make merry over ghosts and owls and monsters of the Nile; and whatever I
say, you take it as aimed at you. At whatever fault I point my pen, you cry
out that you are meant. You collar me and drag me into court and absurdly
charge me with writing satires when I only write plain prose!

   So you really think yourself a pretty fellow just because you have a
lucky name!(1) Why it does not follow at all. A brake is called a brake
just because the light does not break through it.(2) The Fates are called
"sparers,"(3) just because they never spare. The Furies are spoken of as
gracious,(4) because they show no grace. And in common speech Ethiopians go
by the name of silverlings. Still, if the showing up of faults always
angers you, I will soothe you now with the words of Persius: "May you be a
catch for my lord and lady's daughter! May the pretty ladies scramble for
you! May the ground you walk on turn to a rose-bed!"(5)

   3. All the same, I will give you a hint what features to hide if you
want to look your best. Show no nose upon your face and keep your mouth
shut. You will then stand some chance of being counted both handsome and
eloquent.

LETTER XLI: TO MARCELLA.

An effort having been made to convert Marcella to Montanism,(6) Jerome here
summarizes for her its leading doctrines, which he contrasts with those of
the Church. Written at Rome in 385 A.D.

   1. As regards the passages brought together from the gospel of John
with which a certain votary of Montanus has assailed you, passages in which
our Saviour promises that He will go to the Father, and that He will send
the Paraclete(7)--as regards these, the Acts of the Apostles inform us both
for what time the promises were made, and at what time they were actually
fulfilled. Ten days had elapsed, we are told, from the Lord's ascension and
fifty from His resurrection, when the Holy Spirit came down, and the
tongues of the believers were cloven, so that each spoke every language.
Then it was that, when certain persons of those who as yet believed not
declared that the disciples were drunk with new wine, Peter standing in the
midst of the apostles, and of all the concourse said: "Ye men of Judaea and
all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearken to my
words: for these are not drunken as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third
hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel.
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of
my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and
your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and
on my servants, and on my handmaidens will pour out ... of my spirit."(1)

   2. If, then, the apostle Peter, upon whom the Lord has founded the
Church,(2) has expressly said that the prophecy and promise of the Lord
were then and there fulfilled, how can we claim another fulfilment for
ourselves? if the Montanists reply that Philip's four daughters
prophesied(3) at a later date, and that a prophet is mentioned named
Agabus,(4) and that in the partition of the spirit, prophets are spoken of
as well as apostles, teachers and others,(6) and that Paul himself
prophesied many things concerning heresies still future, and the end of the
world; we tell them that we do not so much reject prophecy--for this is
attested by the passion of the Lord--as refuse to receive prophets whose
utterances fail to accord with the Scriptures old and new.

   3. In the first place we differ from the Montanists regarding the rule
of faith. We distinguish the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as three
persons, but unite them as one substance. They, on the other hand,
following the doctrine of Sabellius,(6) force the Trinity into the narrow
limits of a single personality. We, while we do not encourage them, yet
allow second marriages, since Paul bids the younger widows to marry.(7)
They suppose a repetition of marriage a sin so awful that he who has
committed it is to be regarded as an adulterer. We, according to the
apostolic tradition (in which the whole world is at one with us), fast
through one Lent yearly; whereas they keep three in the year as though
three saviours had suffered. I do not mean, of course, that it is unlawful
to fast at other times through the year--always excepting Pentecost(1)--
only that while in Lent it is a duty of obligation, at other seasons it is
a matter of choice. With us, again, the bishops occupy the place of the
apostles, but with them a bishop ranks not first but third. For while they
put first the patriarchs of Pepusa(2) in Phrygia, and place next to these
the ministers called stewards,(3) the bishops are relegated to the third or
almost the lowest rank. No doubt their object is to make their religion
more pretentious by putting that last which we put first. Again they close
the doors of the Church to almost every fault, whilst we read daily, "I
desire the repentance of a sinner rather than his death,"(4) and "Shall
they fall and not arise, saith the Lord,"(5) and once more "Return ye
backsliding children and I will heal your backslidings."(6) Their
strictness does not prevent them from themselves committing grave sins, far
from it; but there is this difference between us and them, that, whereas
they in their self- righteousness blush to confess their faults, we do
penance for ours, and so more readily gain pardon for them.

   4. I pass over their sacraments(7) of sin, made up as they are said to
be, of sucking children subjected to a triumphant martyrdom.(6) I prefer, I
say, not to credit these; accusations of blood-shedding may well be false.
But I must confute the open blasphemy of men who say that God first
determined in the Old Testament to save the world by Moses and the
prophets, but that finding Himself unable to fulfil His purpose He took to
Himself a body of the Virgin, and preaching' under the form of the Son in
Christ, underwent death for our salvation. Moreover that, when by these two
steps He was unable to save the world, He last of all descended by the Holy
Spirit upon Montanus and those demented women Prisca and Maximilia; and
that thus the mutilated and emasculate(9) Montanus possessed a fulness of
knowledge such as was never claimed by Paul; for he was content to say, "We
know in part, and we prophesy in part," and again, "Now we see through a
glass darkly."(1)

   These are statements which require no refutation. To expose the
infidelity of the Montanists is to triumph over it. Nor is it necessary
that in so short a letter as this I should overthrow the several
absurdities which they bring forward. You are well acquainted with the
Scriptures; and, as I take it, you have written, not because you have been
disturbed by their cavils, but only to learn my opinion about them.

LETTER XLII: TO MARCELLA.

At Marcella's request Jerome explains to her what is "the sin against the
Holy Ghost" spoken of by Christ, and shows Novatian's(2) explanation of it
to be untenable. Written at Rome in 385 A.D.

   1. The question you send is short and the answer is clear. There is
this passage in the gospel: "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of
Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy
Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world
to come."(3) Now if Novatian affirms that none but Christian renegades can
sin against the Holy Ghost, it is plain that the Jews who blasphemed Christ
were not guilty of this sin. Yet they were wicked husbandmen, they had
slain the prophets, they were then compassing the death of the Lord;(4) and
so utterly lost were they that the Son of God told them that it was they
whom he had come to save.(5) It must be proved to Novatian, therefore, that
the sin which shall never be forgiven is not the blasphemy of men
disembowelled by torture who in their agony deny their Lord, but is the
captious clamor of those who, while they see that God's works are the fruit
of virtue, ascribe the virtue to a demon and declare the signs wrought to
belong not to the divine excellence but to the devil. And this is the whole
gist of our Saviour's argument, when He teaches that Satan cannot be cast
out by Satan, and that his kingdom is not divided against itself.(6) If it
is the devil's object to injure God's creation, how can he wish to cure the
sick and to expel himself from the bodies possessed by him? Let Novatian
prove that of those who have been compelled to sacrifice before a judge's
tribunal any has declared of the things written in the gospel that they
were wrought not by the Son of God but by Beelzebub, the prince of the
devils;(1) and then he will be able to make good his contention that
this(2) is the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost which shall never be
forgiven.

   2. But to put a more searching question still: let Novatian tell us how
he distinguishes speaking against the Son of Man from blasphemy against the
Holy Ghost. For I maintain that on his principles men who have denied
Christ under persecution have only spoken against the Son of Man, and have
not blasphemed the Holy Ghost. For when a man is asked if he is a
Christian, and declares that he is not; obviously in denying Christ, that
is the Son of Man, he does no despite to the Holy Ghost. But if his denial
of Christ involves a denial of the Holy Ghost, this heretic can perhaps
tell us how the Son of Man can be denied without sinning against the Holy
Ghost. If he thinks that we are here intended by the term Holy Ghost to
understand the Father, no mention at all of the Father is made by the
denier in his denial. When the apostle Peter, taken aback by a maid's
question, denied the Lord, did he sin against the Son of Man or against the
Holy Ghost? If Novatian absurdly twists Peter's words, "I know not the
man,"(3) to mean a denial not of Christ's Messiahship but of His humanity,
he will make the Saviour a liar, for He foretold(4) that He Himself, that
is His divine Sonship, must be denied. Now, when Peter denied the Son of
God, he wept bitterly and effaced his threefold denial by a threefold
confession.(5) His sin, therefore, was not the sin against the Holy Ghost
which can never be forgiven. It is obvious, then, that this sin involves
blasphemy, calling one Beelzebub for his actions, whose virtues prove him
to be God. If Novatian can bring an instance of a renegade who has called
Christ Beelzebub, I will at once give up my position and admit that after
such a fall the denier can win no forgiveness. To give way under torture
and to deny oneself to be a Christian is one thing, to say that Christ is
the devil is another. And this you will yourself see if you read the
passage(6) attentively.

   3. I ought to have discussed the matter more fully, but some friends
have visited my humble abode, and I cannot refuse to give myself up to
them. Still, as it might seem arrogant not to answer you at once, I have
compressed a wide subject into a few words, and have sent you not a letter
but an explanatory note.(1)

LETTER XLIII: TO MARCELLA.

Jerome draws a contrast between his daily life and that of Origen, and
sorrowfully admits his own shortcomings. He then suggests to Marcella the
advantages which life in the country offers over life in town, and hints
that he is himself disposed to make trial of it. Written at Rome in 385
A.D.

   1. Ambrose who supplied Origen, true man of adamant and of brass,(2)
with money, materials and amanuenses to bring out his countless books--
Ambrose, in a letter to his friend from Athens, states that they never took
a meal together without something being read, and never went to bed till
some portion of Scripture had been brought home to them by a brother's
voice. Night and day, in fact, were so ordered that prayer only gave place
to reading and reading to prayer.

   2. Have we, brute beasts that we are, ever done the like? Why, we yawn
if we read for over an hour; we rub our foreheads and vainly try to
suppress our languor. And then, after this great feat, we plunge for relief
into worldly business once more.

   I say nothing of the meals with which we dull our faculties, and I
would rather not estimate the time that we spend in paying and receiving
visits. Next we fall into conversation; we waste our words, we attack
people behind their backs, we detail their way of living, we carp at them
and are carped at by them in turn. Such is the fare that engages our
attention at dinner and afterwards. Then, when our guests have retired, we
make up our accounts, and these are sure to cause us either anger or
anxiety. The first makes us like raging lions, and the second seeks vainly
to make provision for years to come. We do not recollect the words of the
Gospel: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then
whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ?"(3) The clothing
which we buy is designed not merely for use but for display. Where there is
a chance of saving money we quicken our pace, speak promptly, and keep our
ears open. If we hear of household losses--such as often occur--our looks
become dejected and gloomy. The gain of a penny(4) fills us with joy; the
loss of a half-penny(5) plunges us into sorrow. One man is of so many minds
that the prophet's prayer is: "Lord, in thy city scatter their image."(1)
For created as we are in the image of God and after His likeness,(2) it is
our own wickedness which makes us assume masks.(3) Just as on the stage the
same actor now figures as a brawny Hercules, now softens into a tender
Venus, now shivers in the role of Cybele; so we--who, if we were not of the
world, would be hated by the world(4)--for every sin that we commit have a
corresponding mask.

   3. Wherefore, seeing that we have journeyed for much of our life
through a troubled sea, and that our vessel has been in turn shaken by
raging blasts and shattered upon treacherous reefs, let us, as soon as may
be, make for the haven of rural quietude. There such country dainties as
milk and household bread, and greens watered by our own hands, will supply
us with coarse but harmless fare. So living, sleep will not call us away
from prayer, nor satiety from reading. In summer the shade of a tree will
afford us privacy. In autumn the quality of the air and the leaves strewn
under foot will invite us to stop and rest. In springtime the fields will
be bright with flowers, and our psalms will sound the sweeter for the
twittering of the birds. When winter comes with its frost and snow, I shall
not have to buy fuel, and, whether I sleep or keep vigil, shall be warmer
than in town. At least, so far as I know, I shall keep off the cold at less
expense. Let Rome keep to itself its noise and bustle, let the cruel shows
of the arena go on, let the crowd rave at the circus, let the playgoers
revel in the theatres and--for I must not altogether pass over our
Christian friends--let the House of Ladies(5) hold its daily sittings. It
is good for us to cleave to the Lord,(6) and to put our hope in the Lord
God, so that when we have exchanged our present poverty for the kingdom of
heaven, we may be able to exclaim: "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and
there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee."(7) Surely if we can
find such blessedness in heaven we may well grieve to have sought after
pleasures poor and passing here upon earth. Farewell.

LETTER XLIV: TO MARCELLA.

Marcella had sent some small articles as a present (probably to Paula and
Eustochium) and Jerome now writes in their name to thank her for them. He
notices the appropriateness of the gifts, not only to the ladies, but also
to himself. Written at Rome in 385 A.D.

   When absent in body we are wont to converse together in spirit.(1) Each
of us does what he or she can. You send us gifts, we send you back letters
of thanks. And as we are virgins who have taken the veil,(2) it is our duty
to show that hidden meanings lurk under your nice presents. Sackcloth,
then, is a token of prayer and fasting, the chairs remind us that a virgin
should never stir abroad, and the wax tapers that we should look for the
bridegroom's coming with our lights burning.(3) The cups also warn us to
mortify the flesh and always to be ready for martyrdom. "How bright," says
the psalmist," is the cup of the Lord, intoxicating them that drink it!"(4)
Moreover, when you offer to matrons little fly-flaps to brush away
mosquitoes, it is a charming way of hinting that they should at once check
voluptuous feelings, for "dying flies," we are told, "spoil sweet
ointment."(5) In such presents, then, as these, virgins can find a model,
and matrons a pattern. To me, too, your gifts convey a lesson, although one
of an opposite kind. For chairs suit idlers, sackcloth does for penitents,
and cups are wanted for the thirsty. And I shall be glad to light your
tapers, if only to banish the terrors of the night and the fears of an evil
conscience.

LETTER XLV: TO ASELLA.

After leaving Rome for the East, Jerome writes to Asella to refute the
calumnies by which he had been assailed, especially as regards his intimacy
with Paula and Eustochium. Written on board ship at Ostia, in August, 385
A.D.

   1. Were I to think myself able to requite your kindness I should be
foolish. God is able in my stead to reward a soul which is consecrated to
Him. So unworthy, indeed, am I of your regard that I have never ventured to
estimate its value or even to wish that it might be given me for Christ's
sake. Some consider me a wicked man, laden with iniquity; and such language
is more than justified by my actual sins. Yet in dealing with the bad you
do well to account them good. It is dangerous to judge another man's
servant;(6) and to speak evil of the righteous is a sin not easily
pardoned. The day will surely come when you and I shall mourn for others;
for not a few will be in the flames

   2. I am said to be an infamous turncoat, a slippery knave, one who lies
and deceives others by Satanic arts. Which is the safer course, I should
like to know, to invent or credit these charges against innocent persons,
or to refuse to believe them, even of the guilty? Some kissed my hands, yet
attacked me with the tongues of vipers; sympathy was on their lips, but
malignant joy in their hearts. The Lord saw them and had them in
derision,(1) reserving my poor self and them for judgment to come. One
would attack my gait or my way of laughing; another would find something
amiss in my looks; another would suspect the simplicity of my manner. Such
is the company in which I have lived for almost three years.

   It often happened that I found myself surrounded with virgins, and to
some of these I expounded the divine books as best I could. Our studies
brought about constant intercourse, this soon ripened into intimacy, and
this, in turn, produced mutual confidence. If they have ever seen anything
in my conduct unbecoming a Christian let them say so. Have I taken any
one's money? Have I not disdained all gifts, whether small or great? Has
the chink of any one's coin been heard in my hand?(2) Has my language been
equivocal, or my eye wanton? No; my sex is my one crime, and even on this
score I am not assailed, save when there is a talk of Paula going to
Jerusalem. Very well, then. They believed my accuser when he lied; why do
they not believe him when he retracts? He is the same man now that he was
then, and yet he who before declared me guilty now confesses that I am
innocent. Surely a man's words under torture are more trustworthy than in
moments of gayety, except, indeed, that people are prone to believe
falsehoods designed to gratify their ears, or, worse still, stories which,
till then uninvented, they have urged others to invent.

   3. Before I became acquainted with the family of the saintly Paula, all
Rome resounded with my praises. Almost every one concurred in judging me
worthy of the episcopate. Damasus, of blessed memory, spoke no words but
mine.(3) Men called me holy, humble, eloquent.

   Did I ever cross the threshold of a light woman? Was I ever fascinated
by silk dresses, or glowing gems, or rouged faces, or display of gold? Of
all the ladies in Rome but one had power to subdue me, and that one was
Paula. She mourned and fasted, she was squalid with dirt, her eyes were dim
from weeping. For whole nights she would pray to the Lord for mercy, and
often the rising sun found her still at her prayers. The psalms were her
only songs, the Gospel her whole speech, continence her one indulgence,
fasting the staple of her life. The only woman who took my fancy was one
whom I had not so much as seen at table. But when I began to revere,
respect, and venerate her as her conspicuous chastity deserved, all my
former virtues forsook me on the spot.

   4. Oh! envy, that dost begin by tearing thyself! Oh! cunning malignity
of Satan, that dost always persecute things holy! Of all the ladies in
Rome, the only ones that caused scandal were Paula and Melanium, who,
despising their wealth and deserting their children, uplifted the cross of
the Lord as a standard of religion. Had they frequented the baths, or
chosen to use perfumes, or taken advantage of their wealth and position as
widows to enjoy life and to be independent, they would have been saluted as
ladies of high rank and saintliness. As it is, of course, it is in order to
appear beautiful that they put on sackcloth and ashes, and they endure
fasting and filth merely to go down into the Gehenna of fire! As if they
could not perish with the crowd whom the mob applauds!(1) If it were
Gentiles or Jews who thus assailed their mode of life, they would at least
have the consolation of failing to please only those whom Christ Himself
has failed to please. But, shameful to say, it is Christians who thus
neglect the care of their own households, and, disregarding the beams in
their own eyes, look for motes in those of their neighbors.(2) They pull to
pieces every profession of religion, and think that they have found a
remedy for their own doom, if they can disprove the holiness of others, if
they can detract from every one, if they can show that those who perish are
many, and sinners, a great multitude.

   5. You bathe daily; another regards such over-niceness as defilement.
You surfeit yourself on wild fowl and pride yourself on eating sturgeon; I,
on the contrary, fill my belly with beans. You find pleasure in troops of
laughing girls; I prefer Paula and Melanium who weep. You covet what
belongs to others; they disdain what is their own. You like wines flavored
with honey; they drink cold water, more delicious still. You count as lost
what you cannot have, eat up, and devour on the moment; they believe in the
Scriptures, and look for good things to come. And if they are wrong, and if
the resurrection of the body on which they rely is a foolish delusion, what
does it matter to you? We, on our side, look with disfavor on such a life
as yours. You can fatten yourself on your good things as much as you
please; I for my part prefer paleness and emaciation. You suppose that men
like me are unhappy; we regard you as more unhappy still. Thus we
reciprocate each other's thoughts, and appear to each other mutually
insane.

   6. I write this in haste, dear Lady Asella, as I go on board,
overwhelmed with grief and tears; yet I thank my God that I am counted
worthy of the world's hatred.(1) Pray for me that, after Babylon, I may see
Jerusalem once more; that Joshua, the son of Josedech, may have dominion
over me,(2) and not Nebuchadnezzar, that Ezra, whose name means helper, may
come and restore me to my own country. I was a fool in wishing to sing the
Lord's song in a strange land,(3) and in leaving Mount Sinai, to seek the
help of Egypt. I forgot that the Gospel warns us(4) that he who goes down
from Jerusalem immediately fails among robbers, is spoiled, is wounded, is
left for dead. But, although priest and Levite may disregard me, there is
still the good Samaritan who, when men said to him, "Thou art a Samaritan
and hast a devil,"(5) disclaimed having a devil, but did not disclaim being
a Samaritan,(6) this being the Hebrew equivalent for our word guardian. Men
call me a mischief-maker, and I take the title as a recognition of my
faith. For I am but a servant, and the Jews still call my master a
magician. The apostle,(7) likewise, is spoken of as a deceiver. There hath
no temptation taken me but such as is common to man.(8) How few distresses
have I endured, I who am yet a soldier of the cross! Men have laid to my
charge a crime of which I am not guilty;(9) but I know that I must enter
the kingdom of heaven through evil report as well as through good.(10)

   7. Salute Paula and Eustochium, who, whatever the world may think, are
always mine in Christ. Salute Albina, your mother, and Marcella, your
sister; Marcellina also, and the holy Felicitas; and say to them all: "We
must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,(11) and there shall be
revealed the principle by which each has lived."

   And now, illustrious model of chastity and virginity, remember me, I
beseech you, in your prayers, and by your intercessions calm the waves of
the sea.

LETTER XLVI: PAULA AND EUSTOCHIUM TO MARCELLA.

Jerome writes to Marcella in the name of Paula and Eustochium, describing
the charms of the Holy Land. and urging her to leave Rome and to join her
old companions at Bethlehem. Much of the letter is devoted to disposing of
the objection that since the Passion of Christ the Holy Land has been under
a curse. The date of the letter is A.D. 386. It is written from Bethlehem,
which now becomes Jerome's home for the remainder of his life.

   1. Love cannot be measured, impatience knows no bounds, and eagerness
can brook no delay. Wherefore we, oblivious of our weakness, and relying
more on our will than our capacity, desire--pupils though we be--to
instruct our mistress. We are like the sow in the proverb,(1) which sets up
to teach the goddess of invention. You were the first to set our tinder
alight; the first, by precept and example, to urge us to adopt our present
life. As a hen gathers her chickens, so did you take us under your wing.(2)
And will you now let us fly about at random with no mother near us? Will
you leave us to dread the swoop of the hawk and the shadow of each passing
bird of prey? Separated from you, we do what we can: we utter our mournful
plaint, and more by sobs than by tears we adjure you to give back to us the
Marcella whom we love. She is mild, she is suave, she is sweeter than the
sweetest honey. She must not, therefore, be stern and morose to us, whom
her winning ways have roused to adopt a life like her own.

   2. Assuming that what we ask is for the best, our eagerness to obtain
it is nothing to be ashamed of. And if all the Scriptures agree with our
view, we are not too bold in urging you to a course to which you have
yourself often urged us.

   What are God's first words to Abraham? "Get thee out of thy country and
from thy kindred unto a land that I will show thee."(3) The patriarch--the
first to receive a promise of Christ--is here told to leave the Chaldees,
to leave the city of confusion(4) and its rehoboth(5) or broad places; to
leave also the plain of Shinar, where the tower of pride had been raised to
heaven.(6) He has to pass through the waves of this world, and to ford its
rivers; those by which the saints sat down and wept when they remembered
Zion,(1) and Chebar's flood, whence Ezekiel was carried to Jerusalem by the
hair of his head.(2) All this Abraham undergoes that he may dwell in a land
of promise watered from above, and not like Egypt, from below,(3) no
producer of herbs for the weak and ailing,(4) but a land that looks for the
early and the latter rain from heaven.(5) It is a land of hills and
valleys,(6) and stands high above the sea. The attractions of the world it
entirely wants, but its spiritual attractions are for this all the greater.
Mary, the mother of the Lord, left the lowlands and made her way to the
hill country, when, after receiving the angel's message, she realized that
she bore within her womb the Son of God.(7) When of old the Philistines had
been overcome, when their devilish audacity had been smitten, when their
champion had fallen on his face to the earth,(8) it was from this city that
there went forth a procession of jubilant souls, a harmonious choir to sing
our David's victory over tens of thousands.(9) Here, too, it was that the
angel grasped his sword, and while he laid waste the whole of the ungodly
city, marked out the temple of the Lord in the threshing floor of Ornan,
king of the Jebusites.(10) Thus early was it made plain that Christ's
church would grow up, not in Israel, but among the Gentiles. Turn back to
Genesis,(11) and you will find that this was the city over which
Melchizedek held sway, that king of Salem who, as a type of Christ, offered
to Abraham bread and wine, and even then consecrated the mystery which
Christians consecrate in the body and blood of the Saviour.(12)

   3. Perhaps you will tacitly reprove us for deserting the order of
Scripture, and letting our confused account ramble this way and that, as
one thing or another strikes us. If so, we say once more what we said at
the outset: love has no logic, and impatience knows no rule. In the Song of
Songs the precept is given as a hard one: "Regulate your love towards
me."(13) And so we plead that, if we err, we do so not from ignorance but
from feeling.

   Well, then, to bring forward something still more out of place, we must
go back to yet remoter times. Tradition has it that in this city, nay,
more, on this very spot, Adam lived and died. The place where our Lord was
crucified is called Calvary,(1) because the skull of the primitive man was
buried there. So it came to pass that the second Adam, that is the blood(2)
of Christ, as it dropped from the cross, washed away the sins of the buried
protoplast,(3) the first Adam, and thus the words of the apostle were
fulfilled: "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ
shall give thee light."(4)

   It would be tedious to enumerate all the prophets and holy men who have
been sent forth from this place. All that is strange and mysterious to us
is familiar and natural to this city and country. By its very names, three
in number, it proves the doctrine of the trinity. For it is called first
Jebus, then Salem, then Jerusalem: names of which the first means "down-
trodden," the second "peace," and the third "vision of peace."(5) For it is
only by slow stages that we reach our goal; it is only after we have been
trodden down that we are lifted up to see the vision of peace. Because of
this peace Solomon,(6) the man of peace, was born there, and "in peace was
his place made."(7) King of kings, and lord of lords, his name and that of
the city show him to be a type of Christ. Need we speak of David and his
descendants, all of whom reigned here? As Judaea is exalted above all other
provinces, so is this city exalted above all Judaea. To speak more tersely,
the glory of the province is derived from its capital; and whatever fame
the members possess is in every case due to the head.

   4. You have long been anxious to break forth into speech; the very
letters we have formed perceive it, and our paper already understands the
question you are going to put. You will reply to us by saying: it was so of
old, when "the Lord loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of
Jacob," and when her foundations were in the holy mountains.(8) Even these
verses, however, are susceptible of a deeper interpretation. But things are
changed since then. The risen Lord has proclaimed intones of thunder: "Your
house is left unto you desolate." With tears He has prophesied its
downfall: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy
children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and
ye would not. Behold your house is left unto you desolate."(1) The veil of
the temple has been rent;(2) an army has encompassed Jerusalem, it has been
stained by the blood of the Lord. Now, therefore, its guardian angels have
forsaken it and the grace of Christ has been withdrawn. Josephus, himself a
Jewish writer, asserts(3) that at the Lord's crucifixion there broke from
the temple voices of heavenly powers, saying: "Let us depart hence." These
and other considerations show that where grace abounded there did sin much
more abound.(4) Again, when the apostles received the command: "Go ye and
teach all nations,"(5) and when they said themselves: "It was necessary
that the word of God should first have been spoken to you, but seeing ye
put it from you ... lo we turn to the Gentiles,"(6) then all the spiritual
importance(7) of Judaea and its old intimacy with God were transferred by
the apostles to the nations.

   5. The difficulty is strongly stated, and may well puzzle even those
proficient in Scripture; but for all that, it admits of an easy solution.
The Lord wept for the fall of Jerusalem,(8) and He would not have done so
if He did not love it. He wept for Lazarus because He loved him.(9) The
truth is that it was the people who sinned and not the place. The capture
of a city is involved in the slaying of its inhabitants. If Jerusalem was
destroyed, it was that its people might be punished; if the temple was
overthrown, it was that its figurative sacrifices might be abolished. As
regards its site, lapse of time has but invested it with fresh grandeur.
The Jews of old reverenced the Holy of Holies, because of the things
contained in it--the cherubim, the mercy-seat, the ark of the covenant, the
manna, Aaron's rod, and the golden altar.(10) Does the Lord's sepulchre
seem less worthy of veneration? As often as we enter it we see the Saviour
in His grave clothes, and if we linger we see again the angel sitting at
His feet, and the napkin folded at His head.(11) Long before this sepulchre
was hewn out by Joseph,(12) its glory was foretold in Isaiah's prediction,
"his rest shall be glorious,"(13) meaning that the place of the Lord's
burial should be held in universal honor.

   6. How, then, you will say, do we read in the apocalypse written by
John: "The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall ... kill
them [that is, obviously, the prophets], and their dead bodies shall lie in
the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt,
where also their Lord was crucified?"(1) If the great city where the Lord
was crucified is Jerusalem, and if the place of His crucifixion is
spiritually called Sodom and Egypt; then as the Lord was crucified at
Jerusalem, Jerusalem must be Sodom and Egypt. Holy Scripture, I reply first
of all, cannot contradict itself. One book cannot invalidate the drift of
the whole. A single verse cannot annul the meaning of a book. Ten lines
earlier in the apocalypse it is written: "Rise and measure the temple of
God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is
without the temple leave out and measure it not; for it is given unto the
Gentiles; and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two
months."(2) The apocalypse was written by John long after the Lord's
passion, yet in it he speaks of Jerusalem as the holy city. But if so, how
can he spiritually call it Sodom and Egypt? It is no answer to say that the
Jerusalem which is called holy is the heavenly one which is to be, while
that which is called Sodom is the earthly one tottering to its downfall.
For it is the Jerusalem to come that is referred to in the description of
the beast, "which shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and shall make
war against the two prophets, and shall overcome them and kill them, and
their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city."(3) At the
close of the book it is farther described thus: "And the city lieth four-
square, and the length of it and the breadth are the same as the height;
and he measured the city with the golden reed twelve thousand furlongs. The
length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the
walls thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the
measure of a man, that is, of the angel. And the building of the wall of it
was of jasper; and the city was pure gold"(4)--and so on. Now where there
is a square there can be neither length nor breadth. And what kind of
measurement is that which makes length and breadth equal to height? And how
can there be walls of jasper, or a whole city of pure gold; its foundations
and its streets of precious stones, and its twelve gates each glowing with
pearls?

7. Evidently this description cannot be taken literally (in fact, it is
absurd to suppose a city the length, breadth and height of which are all
twelve thousand furlongs), and therefore the details of it must be
mystically understood. The great city which Cain first built and called
after his son(1) must be taken to represent this world, which the devil,
that accuser of his brethren, that fratricide who is doomed to perish, has
built of vice cemented with crime, and filled with iniquity. Therefore it
is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. Thus it is written, "Sodom shall
return to her former estate,"(2) that is to say, the world must be restored
as it has been before. For we cannot believe that Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah
and Zeboim(3) are to be built again: they must be left to lie in ashes
forever. We never read of Egypt as put for Jerusalem: it always stands for
this world. To collect from Scripture the countless proofs of this would be
tedious: I shall adduce but one passage, a passage in which this world is
most clearly called Egypt. The apostle Jude, the brother of James, writes
thus in his catholic epistle: "I will, therefore, put you in remembrance,
though ye once knew this how that Jesus,(4) having saved the people out of
the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not."(5) And,
lest you should fancy Joshua the son of Nun to be meant, the passage goes
on thus: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their
own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness,
unto the judgment of the great day."(6) Moreover, to convince you that in
every place where Egypt, Sodom and Gomorrah are named together it is not
these spots, but the present world, which is meant, he mentions them
immediately in this sense. "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah," he writes, "and
the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication
and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the
vengeance of eternal fire."(7) But what need is there to collect more
proofs when, after the passion and the resurrection of the Lord, the
evangelist Matthew tells us: "The rocks rent, and the graves were opened;
and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves
after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto
many"?(6) We must not interpret this passage straight off, as many
people(9) absurdly do, of the heavenly Jerusalem: the apparition there of
the bodies of the saints could be no sign to men of the Lord's rising.
Since, therefore, the evangelists and all the Scriptures speak of Jerusalem
as the holy city, and since the psalmist commands us to worship the Lord
"at his footstool;"(1) allow no one to call it Sodom and Egypt, for by it
the Lord forbids men to swear because" it is the city of the great
king."(2)

   8. The land is accursed, you say, because it has drunk in the blood of
the Lord. On what grounds, then, do men regard as blessed those spots where
Peter and Paul, the leaders of the Christian host, have shed their blood
for Christ? If the confession of men and servants is glorious, must there
not be glory likewise in the confession of their Lord and God? Everywhere
we venerate the tombs of the martyrs; we apply their holy ashes to our
eyes; we even touch them, if we may, with our lips. And yet some think that
we should neglect the tomb in which the Lord Himself is buried. If we
refuse to believe human testimony, let us at least credit the devil and his
angels.(3) For when in front of the Holy Sepulchre they are driven out of
those bodies which they have possessed, they moan and tremble as if they
stood before Christ's judgment-seat, and grieve, too late that they have
crucified Him in whose presence they now cower. If--as a wicked theory
maintains--this holy place has, since the Lord's passion, become an
abomination, why was Paul in such haste to reach Jerusalem to keep
Pentecost in it?(4) Yet to those who held him back he said: "What mean ye
to weep and to break my heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but
also to die at Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord Jesus."(5) Need I speak
of those other holy and illustrious men who, after the preaching of Christ,
brought their votive gifts and offerings to the brethren who were at
Jerusalem?

   9. Time forbids me to survey the period which has passed since the
Lord's ascension, or to recount the bishops, the martyrs, the divines, who
have come to Jerusalem from a feeling that their devotion and knowledge
would be incomplete and their virtue without the finishing touch, unless
they adored Christ in the very spot where the gospel first flashed from the
gibbet. If a famous orator(6) blames a man for having learned Greek at
Lilybaeum instead of at Athens, and Latin in Sicily instead of at Rome (on
the ground, obviously, that each province has its own characteristics), can
we suppose a Christian's education complete who has not visited the
Christian Athens?

   10. In speaking thus we do not mean to deny that the kingdom of God is
within or to say that there are no holy men elsewhere; we merely assert in
the strongest manner that those who stand first throughout the world are
here gathered side by side. We ourselves are among the last, not the first;
yet we have come hither to see the first of all nations. Of all the
ornaments of the Church our company of monks and virgins is one of the
finest; it is like a fair flower or a priceless gem. Every man of note in
Gaul hastens hither. The Briton, "sundered from our world,"(2) no sooner
makes progress in religion than he leaves the setting sun in quest of a
spot of which he knows only through Scripture and common report. Need we
recall the Armenians, the Persians, the peoples of India and Arabia? Or
those of our neighbor, Egypt, so rich in monks; of Pontus and Cappadocia;
of Caele-Syria and Mesopotamia and the teeming east? In fulfilment of the
Saviour's words, "Wherever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered
together,"(3) they all assemble here and exhibit in this one city the most
varied virtues. Differing in speech, they are one in religion, and almost
every nation has a choir of its own. Yet amid this great concourse there is
no arrogance, no disdain of self-restraint; all strive after humility, that
greatest of Christian virtues. Whosoever is last is here regarded as
first.(4) Their dress neither provokes remark nor calls for admiration. In
whatever guise a man shows himself he is neither censured nor flattered.
Long fasts help no one here. Starvation wins no deference, and the taking
of food in moderation is not condemned. "To his own master" each one
"standeth or falleth."(5) No man judges another lest he be judged of the
Lord.(6) Backbiting, so common in other parts, is wholly unknown here.
Sensuality and excess are far removed from us. And in the city there are so
many places of prayer that a day would not be sufficient to go round them
all.

   11. But, as every one praises most what is within his reach, let us
pass now to the cottage-inn which sheltered Christ and Mary.(7) With what
expressions and what language can we set before you the cave of the
Saviour? The stall where he cried as a babe can be best honored by silence;
for words are inadequate to speak its praise. Where are the spacious
porticoes? Where are the gilded ceilings? Where are the mansions furnished
by the miserable toil of doomed wretches? Where are the costly halls raised
by untitled opulence for man's vile body to walk in? Where are the roofs
that intercept the sky, as if anything could be finer than the expanse of
heaven? Behold, in this poor crevice of the earth the Creator of the
heavens was born; here He was wrapped in swaddling clothes; here He was
seen by the shepherds; here He was pointed out by the star; here He was
adored by the wise men. This spot is holier, me- thinks, than that Tarpeian
rock(1) which has shown itself displeasing to God by the frequency with
which it has been struck by lightning.

   12. Read the apocalypse of John, and consider what is sung therein of
the woman arrayed in purple, and of the blasphemy written upon her brow, of
the seven mountains, of the many waters, and of the end of Babylon.(2)
"Come out of her, my people," so the Lord says, "that ye be not partakers
of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."(3) Turn back also to
Jeremiah and pay heed to what he has written of like import: "Flee out of
the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul."(4) For "Babylon the
great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the
hold of every foul spirit."(5) It is true that Rome has a holy church,
trophies of apostles and martyrs, a true confession of Christ. The faith
has been preached there by an apostle, heathenism has been trodden down,
the name of Christian is daily exalted higher and higher. But the display,
power, and size of the city, the seeing and the being seen, the paying and
the receiving of visits, the alternate flattery and detraction, talking and
listening, as well as the necessity of facing so great a throng even when
one is least in the mood to do so--all these things are alike foreign to
the principles and fatal to the repose of the monastic life. For when
people come in our way we either see them coming and are compelled to
speak, or we do not see them and lay ourselves open to the charge of
haughtiness. Sometimes, also, in returning visits we are obliged to pass
through proud portals and gilded doors and to face the clamor of carping
lackeys. But, as we have said above, in the cottage of Christ all is simple
and rustic: and except for the chanting of psalms there is complete
silence. Wherever one turns the laborer at his plough sings alleluia, the
toiling mower cheers himself with psalms, and the vine- dresser while he
prunes his vine sings one of the lays of David. These are the songs of the
country; these, in popular phrase, its love ditties: these the shepherd
whistles; these the tiller uses to aid his toil.

   13. But what are we doing? Forgetting what is required of us, we are
taken up with what we wish. Will the time never come when a breathless
messenger shall bring the news that our dear Marcella has reached the
shores of Palestine, and when every band of monks and every troop of
virgins shall unite in a song of welcome? In our excitement we are already
hurrying to meet you: without waiting for a vehicle, we hasten off at once
on foot. We shall clasp you by the hand, we shall look upon your face; and
when, after long waiting, we at last embrace you, we shall find it hard to
tear ourselves away. Will the day never come when we shall together enter
the Saviour's cave, and together weep in the sepulchre of the Lord with His
sister and with His mother?(1) Then shall we touch with our lips the wood
of the cross, and rise in prayer and resolve upon the Mount of Olives with
the ascending Lord.(2) We shall see Lazarus come forth bound with grave
clothes,(3) we shall look upon the waters of Jordan purified for the
washing of the Lord.(4) Thence we shall pass to the folds of the
shepherds,(5) we shall pray together in the mausoleum of David.(6) We shall
see the prophet, Amos,(7) upon his crag blowing his shepherd's horn. We
shall hasten, if not to the tents, to the monuments of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, and of their three illustrious wives.(8) We shall see the fountain
in which the eunuch was immersed by Philip.(9) We shall make a pilgrimage
to Samaria, and side by side venerate the ashes of John the Baptist, of
Elisha,(10) and of Obadiah. We shall enter the very caves where in the time
of persecution and famine the companies of the prophets were fed.(11) If
only you will come, we shall go to see Nazareth, as its name denotes, the
flower(12) of Galilee. Not far off Cana will be visible, where the water
was turned into wine.(13) We shall make our way to Tabor,(14) and see the
tabernacles there which the Saviour shares, not, as Peter once wished, with
Moses and Elijah, but with the Father and with the Holy Ghost. Thence we
shall come to the Sea of Gennesaret, and when there we shall see the spots
where the five thousand were filled with five loaves,(1) and the font
thousand with seven.(2) The town of Nain will meet our eyes, at the gate of
which the widow's son was raised to life.(3) Hermon too will be visible,
and the torrent of Endor, at which Sisera was vanquished.(4) Our eyes will
look also on Capernaum, the scene of so many of our Lord's signs--yes, and
on all Galilee besides. And when, accompanied by Christ, we shall have made
our way back to our cave through Shiloh and Bethel, and those other places
where churches are set up like standards to commemorate the Lord's
victories, then we shall sing heartily, we shall weep copiously, we shall
pray unceasingly. Wounded with the Saviour's shaft, we shall say one to
another: "I have found Him whom my soul loveth; I will hold Him and will
not let Him go."(5)

LETTER XLVII: TO DESIDERIUS.

Jerome invites two of his old friends at Rome, Desiderius and his sister
(or wife) Serenilla, to join him at Bethlehem. It is possible but not
probable that this Desiderius is the same with Desiderius of Aquitaine, who
afterwards induced Jerome to write against Vigilantius.

An interval of seven years separates this letter (of which the date is 393
A.D.) from the preceding, and all the letters written during this period
have wholly perished.

   1. Surprised as I have been, my excellent friend, to read the language
which your kindness has prompted you to hold concerning me, I have rejoiced
that I possess the testimony of one both eloquent and sincere; but when I
turn from you to myself I feel vexed that, owing to my unworthiness, your
words of praise and eulogy rather weigh me down than lift me up. You know,
of course, that I make it a principle to raise the standard of humility,
and to prepare for scaling the heights by walking for the present in the
lowest places. For what am I or what is my significance that I should have
the voice of learning raised to bear witness of me, or that the palm of
eloquence should be laid at my feet by one whose style is so charming that
it has almost deterred me from writing a letter at all? I must, however,
make the attempt in order that charity which seeks not her own(1) but
always her neighbor's good, may at least return a compliment, since it
cannot convey a lesson.

   2. I offer my congratulations to you and to your holy and revered
sister,(2) Serenilla, who, true to her name,(3) has trodden down the
troubled waves of the world, and has passed to Christ's calm haven: a
happiness which--if we may trust the augury of your name--is in store for
you also. For we read that the holy Daniel was called" a man of
desires,"(4) and the friend of God, because he desired to know His
mysteries. Therefore, I do with pleasure what the revered Paula has asked
of me. I urge and implore you both by the charity of the Lord that you will
give your presence to us, and that a visit to the holy places may induce
you to enrich us with this great gift. Even supposing that you do not care
for our society, it is still your duty as believers to worship on the spot
where the Lord's feet once stood and to see for yourselves the still fresh
traces of His birth, His cross, and His passion.

   3. Several of my little pieces have flown away out of their nest, and
have rashly sought for themselves the honor of publication. I have not sent
you any lest I should send works which you already have. But if you care to
borrow copies of them, you can do so either from our holy sister, Marcella,
who has her abode upon the Aventine, or from that holy man, Domnio, who is
the Lot of our times.(5) Meantime, I look for your arrival, and will give
you all I have when you once come; or, if any hindrances prevent you from
joining us, I will gladly send you such treatises as you shall desire.
Following the example of Tranquillus(6) and of Apollonius the Greek,(7) I
have written a book concerning illustrious men(8) from the apostles(9) time
to our own; and after enumerating a great number I have put myself down on
the last page as one born out of due time, and the least of all
Christians.(9) Here I have found it necessary to give a short account of my
writings down to the fourteenth year(10) of the Emperor Theodosius. If you
find, on procuring this treatise from the persons mentioned above, that
there are any pieces mentioned which you have not already got, I will have
them copied for you by degrees, if you wish it.

LETTER XLVIII: TO PAMMACHIUS.

An "apology" for the two books "against Jovinian" which Jerome had written
a short time previously, and of which he had sent copies to Rome. These
Pammachius and his other friends had withheld from publication, thinking
that Jerome had unduly exalted virginity at the expense of marriage. He now
writes to make good his position, and to do this makes copious extracts
from the obnoxious treatise. The date of the letter is 393 or 394 A.D.

   1. Your own silence is my reason for not having written hitherto. For I
feared that, if I were to write to you without first hearing from you, you
would consider me not so much a conscientious as a troublesome
correspondent. But, now that I have been challenged by your most delightful
letter, a letter which calls upon me to defend my views by an appeal to
first principles, I receive my old fellow-learner, companion, and friend
with open arms, as the saying goes; and I look forward to having in you a
champion of my poor writings; if, that is to say, I can first conciliate
your judgment to give sentence in my favor, and can instruct my advocate in
all those points on which I  am assailed. For both your favorite, Cicero,
and before him--in his one short treatise--Antonius,(1) write to this
effect, that the chief requisite for victory is to acquaint one's self
carefully with the case which one has to plead.

   2. Certain persons find fault with me because in the books which I have
written against Jovinian I have been excessive (so they say) in praise of
virginity and in depreciation of marriage; and they affirm that to preach
up chastity till no comparison is left between a wife and a virgin is
equivalent to a condemnation of matrimony. If I remember aright the point
of the dispute, the question at issue between myself and Jovinian is that
he puts marriage on a level with virginity, while I make it inferior; he
declares that there is little or no difference between the two states, I
assert that there is a great deal. Finally-- a result due under God to your
agency--he has been condemned because he has dared to set matrimony on an
equality with perpetual chastity. Or, if a virgin and a wife are to be
looked on as the same, how comes it that Rome has refused to listen to this
impious doctrine? A virgin owes her being to a man, but a man does not owe
his to a virgin. There can be no middle course. Either my view of the
matter must be embraced, or else that of Jovinian. If I am blamed for
putting wedlock below virginity, he must be praised for putting the two
states on a level. If, on the other hand, he is condemned for supposing
them equal, his condemnation must be taken as testimony in favor of my
treatise. If men of the world chafe under the notion that they occupy a
position inferior to that of virgins, I wonder that clergymen and monks--
who both live celibate lives--refrain from praising what they consistently
practise. They cut themselves off from their wives to imitate the chastity
of virgins, and yet they will have it that married women are as good as
these. They should either be joined again to their wives whom they have
renounced, or, if they persist in living apart from them, they will have to
confess--by their lives if not by their words--that, in preferring
virginity to marriage, they have chosen the better course, Am I then a mere
novice in the Scriptures, reading the sacred volumes for the first time?
And is the line there drawn between virginity and marriage so fine that I
have been unable to observe it? I could know nothing, forsooth, of the
saying, "Be not righteous overmuch!"(1) Thus, while I try to protect myself
on one side, I am wounded on the other; to speak more plainly still, while
I close with Jovinian in hand-to-hand combat, Manichaeus stabs me in the
back. Have I not, I would ask, in the very forefront of my work set the
following preface:(2) "We are no disciples of Marcion(3) or of
Manichaeus,(4) to detract from marriage. Nor are we deceived by the error
of Tatian,(5) the chief of the Encratites,(6) into supposing all
cohabitation unclean. For he condemns and reprobates not marriage only, but
foods  also which God has created for us to enjoy,(7) We know that in a
large house there are vessels not only of silver and of gold, but of wood
also and of earth.(8) We know, too, that on the foundation of Christ which
Paul the master builder has laid, some build up gold, silver, and precious
stones; others, on the contrary, hay, wood, and stubble.(9) We are not
ignorant that 'marriage is honorable ... and the bed undefiled.'(10) We
have read the first decree of God: 'Be fruitful and multiply and replenish
the earth.'(11) But while we allow marriage, we prefer the virginity which
springs from it. Gold is more precious than silver, but is silver on that
account the less silver? Is it an insult to a tree to prefer its apples to
its roots or its leaves? Is it an injury to corn to put the ear before the
stalk and the blade? As apples come from the tree and grain from the straw,
so virginity comes from wedlock. Yields of one hundredfold, of sixtyfold,
and of thirtyfold(1) may all come from one soil and from one sowing, yet
they will differ widely in quantity. The yield thirtyfold signifies
wedlock, for the joining together of the fingers to express that number,
suggestive as it is of a loving gentle kiss or embracing, aptly represents
the relation of husband and wife. The yield sixtyfold refers to widows who
are placed in a position of distress and tribulation. Accordingly, they are
typified by that finger which is placed under the other to express the
number sixty; for, as it is extremely trying when one has once tasted
pleasure to abstain from its enticements, so the reward of doing this is
proportionately great. Moreover, a hundred- -I ask the reader to give me
his best attention--necessitates a change from the left hand to the right;
but while the hand is different the fingers are the same as those which on
the left hand signify married women and widows; only in this instance the
circle formed by them indicates the crown of virginity."(2)

   3. Does a man who speaks thus, I would ask you, condemn marriage? If I
have called virginity gold, I have spoken of marriage as silver. I have set
forth that the yields an hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold--all spring
from one soil and from one sowing, although in amount they differ widely.
Will any of my readers be so unfair as to judge me, not by my words, but by
his own opinion? At any rate, I have dealt much more gently with marriage
than most Latin and Greek writers;(3) who, by referring the hundredfold
yield to martyrs, the sixtyfold to virgins, and the thirtyfold to widows,
show that in their opinion married persons are excluded from the good
ground and from the seed of the great Father.(4) But, lest it might be
supposed that, though cautious at the outset, I was imprudent in the
remainder of my work, have I not, after marking out the divisions of it, on
coming to the actual questions immediately introduced the following:(1) "I
ask all of you of both sexes, at once those who are virgins and continent
and those who are married or twice married, to aid my efforts with your
prayers." Jovinian is the foe of all indiscriminately, but can I condemn as
Manichaean heretics persons whose prayers I need and whose assistance I
entreat to help me in my work?

   4. As the brief compass of a letter does not suffer us to delay too
long on a single point, let us now pass to those which remain. In
explaining the testimony of the apostle, "The wife hath not power of her
own body, but the husband; and likewise, also, the husband hath not power
of his own body, but the wife,"(2) we have subjoined the following:(3) "The
entire question relates to those who are living in wedlock, whether it is
lawful for them to put away their wives, a thing which the Lord also has
forbidden in the Gospel.(4) Hence, also, the apostle says: 'It is good for
a man not to touch' a wife or 'a woman,'(5) as if there were danger in the
contact which he who should so touch one could not escape. Accordingly,
when the Egyptian woman desired to touch Joseph he flung away his cloak and
fled from her hands.(6) But as he who has once married a wife cannot,
except by consent, abstain from intercourse with her or repudiate her, so
long as she does not sin, he must render unto his wife her due,(7) because
he has of his own free will bound himself to render it under compulsion."
Can one who declares that it is a precept of the Lord that wives should not
be put away, and that what God has joined together man must not, without
consent, put asunder(8)--can such an one be said to condemn marriage?
Again, in the verses which follow, the apostle says: "But every man hath
his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that."(9)
In explanation of this saying we made the following remarks:(10) "What I
myself would wish, he says, is clear. But since there are diversities of
gifts in the church,(11) I allow marriage as well, that I may not appear to
condemn nature. Reflect, too, that the gift of virginity is one thing, that
of marriage another. For had there been one reward for married women and
for virgins he would never, after giving the counsel of continence, have
gone on to say: 'But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this
manner and another after that.' Where each class has its proper gift, there
must be some distinction between the classes. I allow that marriage, as
well as virginity, is the gift of God, but there is a great difference
between gift and gift. Finally, the apostle himself says of one who had
lived in incest and afterwards repented:(4) Contrariwise ye ought rather to
forgive him and comfort him, '(1) and 'To whom ye forgive anything, I
forgive also.'(2) And, lest we might suppose a man's gift to be but a small
thing, he has added: 'For if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for
your sakes forgave I it in the sight(3) of Christ.'(4) The gifts of Christ
are different. Hence Joseph as a type of Him had a coat of many colors.(5)
So in the forty-fourth psalm(6) we read of the Church: 'Upon thy right hand
did stand the queen in a vesture of gold, wrought about with divers
colors.'(7) The apostle Peter, too, speaks (of husbands and wives) 'as
being heirs together of the manifold grace of God.'(8) In Greek the
expression is still more striking, the word used being poiki'lh, that is,
'many-colored.'"

   5. I ask, then, what is the meaning of men's obstinate determination to
shut their eyes and to refuse to look on what is as clear as day? I have
said that there are diversities of gifts in the Church, and that virginity
is one gift and wedlock another. And shortly after I have used the words:
"I allow marriage also to be a gift of God, but there is a great difference
between gift and gift." Can it be said that I condemn that which in the
clearest terms I declare to be the gift of God? Moreover, if Joseph is
taken as a type of the Lord, his coat of many colors is a type of virgins
and widows, celibates and wedded. Can any one who has any part in Christ's
tunic be regarded as an alien? Have we not spoken of the very queen
herself--that is, the Church of the Saviour--as wearing a vesture of gold
wrought about with divers colors? Moreover, when I came to discuss marriage
in connection with the following verses,(9) I still adhered to the same
view.(10) "This passage," I said, "has indeed no relation to the present
controversy; for, following the decision of the Lord, the apostle teaches
that a wife must not be put away saving for fornication, and that, if she
has been put away, she cannot during the lifetime of her husband marry
another man, or, at any rate, that she ought, if possible, to be reconciled
to her husband. In another verse he speaks to the same effect: 'The wife is
bound ... as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is
loosed from the law of her husband;(1) she is at liberty to be married to,
whom she will; only in the Lord,'(2) that is to a Christian. Thus the
apostle, while he allows a second or a third marriage in the Lord, forbids
even a first with a heathen."

   6. I ask my detractors to open their ears and to realize the fact that
I have allowed second and third marriages" in the Lord." If, then, I have
not condemned second and third marriages, how can I have proscribed a
first? Moreover, in the passage where I interpret the words of the apostle,
"Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Is
any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised"(3) (a passage, it
is true, which some most careful interpreters of Scripture refer to the
circumcision and slavery of the Law), do I not in the clearest terms stand
up for the marriage-tie? My words are these:(4) "'If any man is called in
uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised.' You had a wife, the apostle
says, when you believed. Do not fancy your faith in Christ to be a reason
for parting from her. For 'God hath called us in peace.'(5) 'Circumcision
is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the
commandments of God.'(6) Neither celibacy nor wedlock is of the slightest
use without works, since even faith, the distinguishing mark of Christians,
if it have not works, is said to be dead,(7) and on such terms as these the
virgins of Vesta or of Juno, who was constant to one(8) husband, might
claim to be numbered among the saints. And a little further on he says:
'Art thou called being a servant, care not for it; but, if thou mayest be
made free, use it rather;'(9) that is to say, if you have a wife, and are
bound to her, and render her her due, and have not power of your own body--
or, to speak yet more plainly--if you are the slave of a wife, do not allow
this to cause you sorrow, do not sigh over the loss of your virginity. Even
if you can find pretexts for parting from her to enjoy the freedom of
chastity, do not seek your own welfare at the price of another's ruin. Keep
your wife for a little, and do not try too hastily to overcome her
reluctance. Wait till she follows your example. If you only have patience,
your wife will some day become your sister."

   7. In another passage we have discussed the reasons which led Paul to
say: "Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give
my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be
faithful."(1) Here also, while we have ex-tolled virginity, we have been
careful to give marriage its due.(2) "Had the Lord commanded virginity," we
said, "He would have seemed to condemn marriage and to do away with that
seed-plot of humanity from which virginity itself springs. Had He cut away
the root how could He have looked for fruit? Unless He had first laid the
foundations, how could He have built the edifice or crowned it with a roof
made to cover its whole extent?" If we have spoken of marriage as the root
whose fruit is virginity, and if we have made wedlock the foundation on
which the building or the roof of perpetual chastity is raised, which of my
detractors can be so captious or so blind as to ignore the foundation on
which the fabric and its roof are built, while he has before his eyes both
the fabric and the roof themselves? Once more, in another place, we have
brought forward the testimony of the apostle to this effect: "Art thou
bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek
not a wife."(3) To this we have appended the following remarks:(4) "Each of
us has his own sphere allotted to him. Let me have mine, and do you keep
yours. If you are bound to a wife, do not put her away. If I am loosed from
a wife, let me not seek a wife. Just as I do not loose marriage-ties when
they are once made, so do you refrain from binding together what at present
is loosed from such ties." Yet another passage bears unmistakable testimony
to the view which we have taken of virginity and of wedlock:(5) "The
apostle casts no snare upon us,(6) nor does he compel us to be what we do
not wish. He only urges us to what is honorable and seemly, inciting us
earnestly to serve the Lord, to be anxious always to please Him, and to
took for His will which He has prepared for us to do. We are to be like
alert and armed soldiers, who immediately execute the orders given to them
and perform them without that travail of mind(7) which,  according to the
preacher, is given to the men of this world 'to be exercised
therewith.'"(1) At the end, also, of our comparison of virgins and married
women we have summed up the discussion thus:(2) "When one thing is good and
another thing is better; when that which is good has a different reward
from that which is better; and when there are more rewards than one, then,
obviously, there exists a diversity of gifts. The difference between
marriage and virginity is as great as that between not doing evil and doing
good--or, to speak more favorably still, as that between what is good and
what is still better."

   8. In the sequel we go on to Speak thus:(3) "The apostle, in concluding
his discussion of marriage and of virginity, is careful to observe a mean
course in discriminating between them, and, turning neither to the right
hand nor to the left, he keeps to the King's highway,(4) and thus fulfils
the injunction, 'Be not righteous overmuch.'(5) Moreover, when he goes on
to compare monogamy with digamy, he puts digamy after monogamy, just as
before he subordinated marriage to virginity." Do we not clearly show by
this language what is typified in the Holy Scriptures by the terms right
and left, and also what we take to be the meaning of the words "Be not
righteous overmuch"? We turn to the left if, following the lust of Jews and
Gentiles, we burn for sexual intercourse; we turn to the right if,
following the error of the Manichaeans, we under a pretence of chastity
entangle ourselves in the meshes of unchastity. But we keep to the King's
highway if we aspire to virginity yet refrain from condemning marriage. Can
any one, moreover, be so unfair in his criticism of my poor treatise as to
allege that I condemn first marriages, when he reads my opinion on second
ones as follows:(6) "The apostle, it is true, allows second marriages, but
only to such women as are bent upon them, to such as cannot contain,(7)
lest 'when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they marry, having
condemnation because they have rejected their first faith,'(8) and he makes
this concession because many 'are turned aside after Satan.'(9) But they
will be happier if they abide as widows. To this he immediately adds his
apostolical authority, 'after my judgment.' Moreover, lest any should
consider that authority, being human, to be of small weight, he goes on to
say, 'and I think also that I have the spirit of God.'(1) Thus, where he
urges men to continence he appeals not to human authority, but to the
Spirit of God; but when he gives them permission to marry he does not
mention the Spirit of God, but allows prudential considerations to turn the
balance, relaxing the strictness of his code in favor of individuals
according to their several needs." Having thus brought forward proofs that
second marriages are allowed by the apostle, we at once added the remarks
which follow:(2) "As marriage is permitted to virgins by reason of the
danger of fornication, and as what in itself is not desirable is thus made
excusable, so by reason of the same danger widows are permitted to marry a
second time. For it is better that a woman should know one man (though he
should be a second husband or a third) than that she should know several.
In other words, it is preferable that she should prostitute herself to one
rather than to many." Calumny may do its worst. We have spoken here not of
a first marriage, but of a second, of a third, or (if you like) of a
fourth. But lest any one should apply my words (that it is better for a
woman to prostitute herself to one man than to several) to a first marriage
when my whole argument dealt with digamy and trigamy, I marked my own view
of these practices with the words:(3) "'All things are lawful, but all
things are not expedient.'(4) I do not condemn digamists nor yet
trigamists, nor even, to put an extreme, case, octogamists. I will make a
still greater concession: I am ready to receive even a whore-monger, if
penitent. In every case where fairness is possible, fair consideration must
be shown."

   9. My calumniator should blush at his assertion that I condemn first
marriages when he reads my words just now quoted: "I do not condemn
digamists or trigamists, or even, to put an extreme case, octogamists." Not
to condemn is one thing, to commend is another. I may concede a practice as
allowable and yet not praise it as meritorious. But if I seem severe in
saying, "In every case where fairness is possible, fair consideration must
be shown," no one, I fancy, will judge me either cruel or stern who reads
that the places prepared for virgins and for wedded persons are different
from those prepared for trigamists, octogamists, and penitents. That Christ
Himself, although in the flesh a virgin, was in the spirit a monogamist,
having one wife, even the Church,(1) I have shown in the latter part of my
argument.(2) And yet I am supposed to condemn marriage! I am said to
condemn it, although I use such words as these:(3) "It is an undoubted fact
that the levitical priests were descended from the stock of Aaron, Eleazar,
and Phinehas; and, as all these were married men, we might well be
confronted with them if, led away by the error of the Encratites, we were
to contend that marriage is in itself deserving of condemnation." Here I
blame Tatian, the chief of the Encratites, for his rejection of marriage,
and yet I myself am said to condemn it! Once more, when I contrast virgins
with widows, my own words show what my view is concerning wedlock, and set
forth the threefold gradation which I propose of virgins, widows--whether
in practice or in fact(4)--and wedded wives. "I do not deny"--these are my
words(5)--" the blessedness of widows who continue such after their
baptism, nor do I undervalue the merit of wives who live in chastity with
their husbands; but, just as widows receive a greater reward from God than
wives obedient to their husbands, they, too, must be content to see virgins
preferred before themselves."

   10. Again, when explaining the witness of the apostle to the Galatians,
"By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified," I have spoken to the
following effect: "Marriages also are works of the law. And for this reason
there is a curse upon such as do not produce offspring. They are permitted,
it is true, even under the Gospel; but it is one thing to concede an
indulgence to what is a weakness and quite another to promise a reward to
what is a virtue." See my express declaration that marriage is allowed in
the Gospel, yet that those who are married cannot receive the rewards of
chastity so long as they render their due one to another. If married men
feel indignant at this statement, let them vent their anger not on me but
on the Holy Scriptures; nay, more, upon all bishops, presbyters, and
deacons, and the whole company of priests and levites, who know that they
cannot offer sacrifices if they fulfil the obligations of marriage. Again,
when I adduce evidence from the Apocalypse,(6) is it not clear what view I
take concerning virgins, widows, and wives? "These are they who sing a new
song(7) which no man can sing except he be a virgin. These are 'the first
fruits unto God and unto the Lamb,'(1) and they are without spot. If
virgins are the first fruits unto God, then widows and wives who live in
continence must come after the first fruits--that is to say, in the second
place and in the third." We place widows, then, and wives in the second
place and in the third, and for this we are charged by the frenzy of a
heretic with condemning marriage altogether.

   11. Throughout the book I have made many remarks in a tone of great
moderation on virginity, widowhood, and marriage. But for the sake of
brevity, I will here adduce but one passage, and that of such a kind that
no one, I think, will be found to gainsay it save some one who wishes to
prove himself malicious or mad. In describing our Lord's visit to the
marriage at Cana in Galilee,(2) after some other remarks I have added
these:(3) "He who went but once to a marriage has taught us that a woman
should marry but once; and this fact might tell against virginity if we
failed to give marriage its due place--after virginity that is, and chaste
widowhood. But, as it is only heretics who condemn marriage and tread under
foot the ordinance of God, we listen with gladness to every word said by
our Lord in praise of marriage. For the Church does not condemn marriage,
but only subordinates it. It does not reject it altogether, but regulates
it, knowing (as I have said above) that 'in a great house there are not
only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some
to honor and some to dishonor. If a man, therefore, purge himself ... he
shall be a vessel unto honor meet ... and prepared unto every good
work.'"(4) I listen with gladness, I say here, to every word said by the
apostle in praise of marriage. Do I listen with gladness to the praise of
marriage, and do I yet condemn marriage? The Church, I say, does not
condemn wedlock, but subordinates it. Whether you like it or not, marriage
is subordinated to virginity and widowhood. Even when marriage continues to
fulfil its function, the Church does not condemn it, but only subordinates
it; it does not reject it, but only regulates it. It is in your power, if
you will, to mount the second step of chastity.(5) Why are you angry if,
standing on the third and lowest step, you will not make haste to go up
higher?

   12. Since, then, I have so often reminded my reader of my views; and
since I have picked my way like a prudent traveller over every inch of the
road, stating repeatedly that, while I receive marriage as a thing in
itself admissible, I yet prefer continence, widowhood, and virginity, the
wise and generous reader ought to have judged what seemed hard sayings by
my general drift, and not to have charged me with putting forward
inconsistent opinions in one and the same book. For who is so dull or so
inexperienced in writing as to praise and to condemn one and the same
object, as to destroy what he has built up, and to build up what he has
destroyed; and when he has vanquished his opponent, to turn his sword, last
of all against himself? Were my detractors country bred or unacquainted
with the arts of rhetoric or of logic, I should pardon their want of
insight; nor should I censure them for accusing me if I saw that their
ignorance was in fault and not their will. As it is men of intellect who
have enjoyed a liberal education make it their object less to understand me
than to wound me, and for such I have this short answer, that they should
correct my faults and not merely censure me for them. The lists are open, I
cry; your enemy has marshalled his forces, his position is plain, and (if I
may quote Virgil(1))--

   "The foeman calls you: meet him face to face."

Such men should answer their opponent. They ought to keep within the limits
of debate, and not to wield the schoolmaster's rod. Their books should aim
at showing in what my statements have fallen short of the truth, and in
what they have exceeded it. For, although I will not listen to fault-
finders, I will follow the advice of teachers. To direct the fighter how to
fight when you yourself occupy a post of vantage on the wall is a kind of
teaching that does not commend itself; and when you are yourself bathed in
perfumes, it is unworthy to charge a bleeding soldier with cowardice. Nor
in saying this do I lay myself open to a charge of boasting that while
others have slept I only have entered the lists. My meaning simply is that
men who have seen me wounded in this warfare may possibly be a little too
cautious in their methods of fighting. I would not have you engage in an
encounter in which you will have nothing to do but to protect yourself,
your right hand remaining motionless while your left manages your shield.
You must either strike or fall. I cannot account you a victor unless I see
your opponent put to the sword.

   13. You are, no doubt, men of vast acquirements; but we too have
studied in the schools, and, like you, we have learned from the precepts of
Aristotle--or, rather, from those which he has derived from Gorgias--that
there are different ways of speaking; and we know, among other things, that
he who writes for display uses one style, and he who writes to convince,
another.(1) In the former case the debate is desultory; to confute the
opposer, now this argument is adduced and now that. One argues as one
pleases, saying one thing while one means another. To quote the proverb,
"With one hand one offers bread, in the other one holds a stone."(2) In the
latter case a certain frankness and openness of countenance are necessary.
For it is one thing to start a problem and another to expound what is
already proved. The first calls for a disputant, the second for a teacher.
I stand in the thick of the fray, my life in constant danger: you who
profess to teach me are a man of books. "Do not," you say, "attack
unexpectedly or wound by a side-thrust. Strike straight at your opponent.
You should be ashamed to resort to feints instead of force." As if it were
not the perfection of fighting to menace one part and to strike another.
Read, I beg of you, Demosthenes or Cicero, or (if you do not care for
pleaders whose aim is to speak plausibly rather than truly) read Plato,
Theophrastus, Xenophon, Aristotle, and the rest of those who draw their
respective rills of wisdom from the Socratic fountain-head. Do they show
any openness? Are they devoid of artifice? Is not every word they say
filled with meaning? And does not this meaning always make for victory?
Origen, Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinaris(3) write at great length
against Celsus and Porphyry.(4) Consider how subtle are the arguments, how
insidious the engines with which they overthrow what the spirit of the
devil has wrought. Sometimes, it is true, they are compelled to say not
what they think but what is needful; and for this reason they employ
against their opponents the assertions of the Gentiles themselves. I say
nothing of the Latin authors, of Tertullian, Cyprian, Minutius, Victorinus,
Lactantius, Hilary, lest I should appear not so much to be defending myself
as to be assailing others. I will only mention the Apostle Paul, whose
words seem to me, as often as I hear them, to be not words, but peals of
thunder. Read his epistles, and especially those addressed to the Romans,
to the Galatians, and to the Ephesians, in all of which he stands in the
thick of the battle, and you will see how skilful and how careful he is in
the proofs which he draws from the Old Testament, and how warily he cloaks
the object which he has in view. His words seem simplicity itself: the
expressions of a guileless and unsophisticated person--one who has no skill
either to plan a dilemma or to avoid it. Still, whichever way you look,
they are thunderbolts. His pleading halts, yet he carries every point which
he takes up. He turns his back upon his foe only to overcome him; he
simulates flight, but only that he may slay. He, then, if any one, ought to
be calumniated; we should speak thus to him: "The proofs which yon have
used against the Jews or against other heretics bear a different meaning in
their own contexts to that which they bear in your epistles. We see
passages taken captive by your pen and pressed into service to win you a
victory which in the volumes from which they are taken have no
controversial bearing at all." May he not reply to us in the words of the
Saviour: "I have one mode of speech for those that are without and another
for those that are within; the crowds hear my parables, but their
interpretation is for my disciples alone"?(1) The Lord puts questions to
the Pharisees, but does not elucidate them. To teach a disciple is one
thing; to vanquish an opponent, another. "My mystery is for me," says the
prophet; "my mystery is for me and for them that are mine."(2)

   14. You are indignant with me because I have merely silenced Jovinian
and not instructed him. You, do I say? Nay, rather, they who grieve to hear
him anathematized, and who impeach their own pretended orthodoxy by
eulogizing in another the heresy which they hold themselves. I should have
asked him, forsooth, to surrender peaceably! I had no right to disregard
his struggles and to drag him against his will into the bonds of truth! I
might use such language had the desire of victory induced me to say
anything counter to the rule laid down in Scripture, and had I taken the
line--so often adopted by strong men in controversy--of justifying the
means by the result. As it is, however, I have been an exponent of the
apostle rather than a dogmatist on my own account; and my function has been
simply that of a commentator. Anything, therefore, which seems a hard
saying should be imputed to the writer expounded by me rather than to me
the expounder; unless, indeed, he spoke otherwise than he is represented to
have done, and I have by an unfair interpretation wrested the plain meaning
of his words. If any one charges me with this disingenuousness let him
prove his charge from the Scriptures themselves.

   I have said in my book,(1) "If 'it is good for a man not to touch a
woman,' then it is bad for him to touch one, for bad, and bad only, is the
opposite of good. But, if though bad it is made venial, then it is allowed
to prevent something which would be worse than bad," and so on down to the
commencement of the next chapter. The above is my comment upon the
apostle's words: "It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless,
to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman
have her own husband."(2) In what way does my meaning differ from that
intended by the apostle? Except that where he speaks decidedly I do so with
hesitation. He defines a dogma, I hazard an inquiry. He openly says: "It is
good for a man not to touch a woman." I timidly ask if it is good for a man
not to touch one. If I thus waver, I cannot be said to speak positively. He
says: "It is good not to touch." I add what is a possible antithesis to
"good." And immediately afterwards I speak thus:(3) "Notice the apostle's
carefulness. He does not say: 'It is good for a man not to have a wife,'
but, 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman'; as if there is danger in
the very touching of one- -danger which he who touches cannot escape." You
see, therefore, that I am not expounding the law as to husbands and wives,
but simply discussing the general question of sexual intercourse--how in
comparison with chastity and virginity, the life of angels, "It is good for
a man not to touch a woman."

   "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "all is vanity."(4) But if all
created things are good,(5) as being the handiwork of a good Creator, how
comes it that all things are vanity? If the earth is vanity, are the
heavens vanity too?--and the angels, the thrones, the dominations, the
powers, and the rest of the virtues?(6) No; if things which are good in
themselves as being the handiwork of a good Creator are called vanity, it
is because they are compared with things which are better still. For
example, compared with a lamp, a lantern is good for nothing; compared with
a star, a lamp does not shine at all; the brightest star pales before the
moon; put the moon beside the sun, and it no longer looks bright; compare
the sun with Christ, and it is darkness. "I am that I am," God says;(1) and
if you compare all created things with Him they have no existence. "Give
not thy sceptre," says Esther, "unto them that be nothing"(2)--that is to
say, to idols and demons. And certainly they were idols and demons to whom
she prayed that she and hers might not be given over. In Job also we read
how Bildad says of the wicked man: "His confidence shall be rooted out of
his tabernacle, and destruction as a king shall trample upon him. The
companions also of him who is not shall abide in his tabernacle."(3) This
evidently relates to the devil, who must be in existence, otherwise he
could not be said to have companions. Still, because he is lost to God, he
is said not to be.

   Now it was in a similar sense that I declared it to be a bad thing to
touch a woman--I did not say a wife--because it is a good thing not to
touch one. And I added:(4) "I call virginity fine corn, wedlock barley, and
fornication cow-dung." Surely both corn and barley are creatures of God.
But of the two multitudes miraculously supplied in the Gospel the larger
was fed upon barley loaves, and the smaller on corn bread.(5) "Thou, Lord,"
says the psalmist, "shalt save both man and beast."(6) I have myself said
the same thing in other words, when I have spoken of virginity as gold and
of wedlock as silver.(7) Again, in discussing(8) the one hundred and forty-
four thousand sealed virgins who were not defiled with women,(9) I have
tried to show that all who have not remained virgins are reckoned as
defiled when compared with the perfect chastity of the angels and of our
Lord Jesus Christ. But if any one thinks it hard or reprehensible that I
have placed the same interval between virginity and wedlock as there is
between fine corn and barley, let him read the book of the holy Ambrose "On
Widows," and he will find, among other statements concerning virginity and
marriage, the following:(10) "The apostle has not expressed his preference
for marriage so unreservedly as to quench in men the aspiration after
virginity; he commences with a recommendation of continence, and it is only
subsequently that he stoops to mention the remedies for its opposite. And
although to the strong he has pointed out the prize of their high
calling,(1) yet he suffers none to faint by the way;(2) whilst he applauds
those who lead the van, he does, not despise those who bring up the rear.
For he had himself learned that the Lord Jesus gave to some barley bread,
lest they should faint by the way, but offered to others His own body, that
they should strive to attain His kingdom;"(3) and immediately afterwards:
"The nuptial tie, then, is not to be avoided as a crime, but to be refused
as a hard burden. For the law binds the wife to bring forth children in
labor and in sorrow. Her desire is to be to her husband that he should rule
over her.(4) It is not the widow, then, but the bride, who is handed over
to labor and sorrow in childbearing. It is not the virgin, but the married
woman, who is subjected to the sway of a husband." And in another place,
"Ye are bought," says the apostle, "with a price;(5) be not therefore the
servants of men."(6) You see how clearly he defines the servitude which
attends the married state. And a little farther on: "If, then, even a good
marriage is servitude, what must a bad one be, in which husband and wife
cannot sanctify, but only mutually destroy each other?" What I have said
about virginity and marriage diffusely, Ambrose has stated tersely and
pointedly, compressing much meaning into a few words. Virginity is
described by him as a means of recommending continence, marriage as a
remedy for incontinence. And when he descends from broad principles to
particular details, he significantly holds out to virgins the prize of the
high calling, yet comforts the married, that they may not faint by the way.
While eulogizing the one class, he does not despise the other. Marriage he
compares to the barley bread set before the multitude, virginity to the
body of Christ given to the disciples. There is much less difference, it
seems to me, between barley and fine corn than between barley and the body
of Christ. Finally, he speaks of marriage as a hard burden, to be avoided
if possible, and as a badge of the most unmistakable servitude. He makes,
also, many other statements, which he has followed up at length in his
three books "On Virgins."

   15. From all which considerations it is clear that I have said nothing
at all new concerning virginity and marriage, but have followed in all
respects the judgment of older writers--of Ambrose, that is to say, and
others who have discussed the doctrines of the Church. "And I would sooner
follow them in their faults than copy the dull pedantry of the writers of
to-day."(1) Let married men, if they please, swell with rage because I have
said,(2) "I ask you, what kind of good thing is that which forbids a man to
pray, and which prevents him from receiving the body of Christ?" When I do
my duty as a husband, I cannot fulfil the requirements of continence. The
same apostle, in another place, commands us to pray always.(3) "But if we
are always to pray we must never yield to the claims of wedlock for, as
often as I render her due to my wife, I incapacitate myself for prayer."
When I spoke thus it is clear that I relied on the words of the apostle:
"Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that
ye may give yourselves to ... prayer."(4) The Apostle Paul tells us that
when we have intercourse with our wives we cannot pray. If, then, sexual
intercourse prevents what is less important--that is, prayer--how much more
does it prevent what is more important--that is, the reception of the body
of Christ? Peter, too, exhorts us to continence, that our "prayers be not
hindered."(5) How, I should like to know, have I sinned in all this? What
have I done? How have I been in fault? If the waters of a stream are thick
and muddy, it is not the river-bed which is to blame, but the source. Am I
attacked because I have ventured to add to the words of the apostle these
words of my own: "What kind of good thing is that which prevents a man from
receiving the body of Christ?" If so, I will make answer briefly thus:
Which is the more important, to pray or to receive Christ's body? Surely to
receive Christ's body. If, then, sexual intercourse hinders the less
important thing, much more does it hinder that which is the more important.

   I have said in the same treatise(6) that David and they that were with
him could not have lawfully eaten the shew-bread had they not made answer
that for three days they had not been defiled with women(1)--not, of
course, with harlots, intercourse with whom was forbidden by the law, but
with their own wives, to whom they were lawfully united. Moreover, when the
people were about to receive the law on Mount Sinai they were commanded to
keep away from their wives for three days.(2) I know that at Rome it is
customary for the faithful always to receive the body of Christ, a custom
which I neither censure nor indorse. "Let every man be fully persuaded in
his own mind."(3) But I appeal to the consciences of those persons who
after indulging in sexual intercourse on the same day receive the
communion--having first, as Persius puts it, "washed off the night in a
flowing stream,"(4) and I ask such why they do not presume to approach the
martyrs or to enter the churches.(5) Is Christ of one mind abroad and of
another at home? What is unlawful in church cannot be lawful at home.
Nothing is hidden from God. "The night shineth as the day" before Him.(6)
Let each man examine himself, and so let him approach the body of
Christ.(7) Not, of course, that the deferring of communion for one day or
for two makes a Christian any the holier or that what I have not deserved
to-day I shall deserve to-morrow or the day after. But if I grieve that I
have not shared in Christ's body it does help me to avoid for a little
while my wife's embraces, and to prefer to wedded love the love of Christ.
A hard discipline, you will say, and one not to be borne. What man of the
world could bear it? He that can bear it, I reply, let him bear it;(8) he
that cannot must look to himself. it is my business to say, not what each
man can do or will do, but what the Scriptures inculcate.

   16. Again, objection has been taken to my comments on the apostle in
the following passage:(9) "But lest any should suppose from the context of
the words before quoted (namely, 'that ye may give yourselves ... to prayer
and come together again') that the apostle desires this consummation, and
does not merely concede it to obviate a worse downfall, he immediately
adds, 'that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.'(1) 'And come
together again.' What a noble indulgence the words convey! One which he
blushes to speak of in plainer words, which he prefers only to Satan's
temptation, and which has its root in incontinence. Do we labor to expound
this as a dark saying when the writer has himself explained his meaning? "I
speak this,' he says, 'by way of permission, and not as a command.'(2) Do
we still hesitate to speak of wedlock as a thing permitted instead of as a
thing enjoined? or are we afraid that such permission will exclude second
or third marriages or some other case?" What have I said here which the
apostle has not said? The phrase, I suppose, "which he blushes to speak of
in plainer words." I imagine that when he says "come together," and does
not mention for what, he takes a modest way of indicating what he does not
like to name openly--that is, sexual intercourse. Or is the objection to
the words which follow--"which he prefers only to Satan's temptation, and
which has its root in incontinence"? Are they not the very words of the
apostle, only differently arranged--"that Satan tempt you not for your
incontinency"? Or do people cavil because I said, "Do we still hesitate to
speak of wedlock as a thing permitted instead of as a thing enjoined?" If
this seems a hard saying, it should be ascribed to the apostle, who says,
"But I speak this by way of permission, and not as a command," and not to
me, who, except that I have rearranged their order, have changed neither
the words nor their meaning.

   17. The shortness of a letter compels me to hasten on. I pass,
accordingly, to the points which remain. "I say," remarks the apostle, "to
the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But
if they cannot contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to
burn."(3) This section I have interpreted thus:(4) "When he has granted to
those who are married the use of wedlock, and has made clear his own wishes
and concessions, he passes on to those who are unmarried or widows, and
sets before them his own example. He calls them happy if they abide even as
he,(5) but he goes on, 'if they cannot contain, let them marry.' He thus
repeats his former language, 'but only to avoid fornication,' and 'that
Satan tempt you not for your incontinence.' And when he says, 'If they
cannot contain, let them marry,' he gives as a reason for his words that
'it is better to marry than to burn.' It is only good to marry, because it
is bad to burn. But take away the fire of lust, and he will not say 'it is
better to marry.' For a thing is said to be better in antithesis to
something which is worse, and not simply in contrast with what is
admittedly good. It is as though he said, 'It is better to have one eye
than none."' Shortly afterwards, apostrophizing the apostle, I spoke thus:'
"If marriage is good in itself, do not compare it with a conflagration, but
simply say, 'It is good to marry.' I must suspect the goodness of a thing
which only becomes a lesser evil in the presence of a greater one. I, for
my part, would have it not a lighter evil but a downright good." The
apostle wishes unmarried women and widows to abstain from sexual
intercourse, incites them to follow his own example, and calls them happy
if they abide even as he. But if they cannot contain, and are tempted to
quench the fire of lust by fornication rather than by continence, it is
better, he tells them, to marry than to burn. Upon which precept I have
made this comment: "It is good to marry, simply because it is bad to burn,"
not putting forward a view of my own, but only explaining the apostle's
precept, "It is better to marry than to burn;" that is, it is better to
take a husband than to commit fornication. If, then, you teach that burning
or fornication is good, the good will still be surpassed by what is still
better.(2) But if marriage is only a degree better than the evil to which
it is preferred, it cannot be of that unblemished perfection and
blessedness which suggest a comparison with the life of angels. Suppose I
say, "It is better to be a virgin than a married woman;" in this case I
have preferred to what is good what is still better. But suppose I go a
step further and say, "It is better to marry than to commit fornication;"
in that case I have preferred, not a better thing to a good thing, but a
good thing to a bad one. There is a wide difference between the two cases;
for, while virginity is related to marriage as better is to good, marriage
is related to fornication as good is to bad. How, I should like to know,
have I sinned in this explanation? My fixed purpose was not to bend the
Scriptures to my own wishes, but simply to say what I took to be their
meaning. A commentator has no business to dilate on his own views; his duty
is to make plain the meaning of the author whom he professes to interpret.
For, if he contradicts the writer whom he is trying to expound, he will
prove to be his opponent rather than his interpreter. When I am freely
expressing my own opinion, and not commenting upon the Scriptures, then any
one that pleases may charge me with having spoken hardly of marriage. But
if he can find no ground for such a charge, he should attribute such
passages in my commentaries as appear severe or harsh to the author
commented on, and not to me, who am only his interpreter.

   18. Another charge brought against me is simply intolerable! It is
urged that in explaining the apostle's words concerning husbands and wives,
"Such shall have trouble in the flesh," I have said:(1) "We in our
ignorance had supposed that in the flesh at least wedlock would have
rejoicing. But if married persons are to have trouble in the flesh, the
only thing in which they seemed likely to have pleasure, what motive will
be left to make women marry? for, besides having trouble in spirit and
soul, they will also have it even in the flesh."(2) Do I condemn marriage
if I enumerate its troubles, such as the crying of infants, the death of
children the chance of abortion, domestic losses, and so forth? Whilst
Damasus of holy memory was still living, I wrote a book against Helvidius
"On the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary," in which, duly to extol
the bliss of virginity, I was forced to say much of the troubles of
marriage. Did that excellent man--versed in Scripture as he was, and a
virgin doctor of the virgin Church--find anything to censure in my
discourse? Moreover, in the treatise which I addressed to Eustochium(3) I
used much harsher language regarding marriage, and yet no one was offended
at it. Nay, every lover of chastity strained his ears to catch my eulogy of
continence. Read Tertullian, read Cyprian, read Ambrose, and either accuse
me with them or acquit me with them. My critics resemble the characters of
Plautus. Their only wit lies in detraction; and they try to make themselves
out men of learning by assailing all parties in turn. Thus they bestow
their censure impartially upon myself and upon my opponent, and maintain
that we are both beaten, although one or other of us must have succeeded.

   Moreover, when in discussing digamy and trigamy I have said,(1) "It is
better for a woman to know one man, even though he be a second husband or a
third, than several; it is more tolerable for her to prostitute herself to
one man than to many," have I not immediately subjoined my reason for so
saying? "The Samaritan woman in the Gospel, when she declares that her
present husband is her sixth, is rebuked by the Lord on the ground that he
is not her husband."(2) For my own part, I now once more freely proclaim
that digamy is not condemned in the Church--no, nor yet trigamy--and that a
woman may marry a fifth husband, or a sixth, or a greater number still just
as lawfully as she may marry a second; but that, while such marriages are
not condemned, neither are they commended. They are meant as alleviations
of an unhappy lot, and in no way redound to the glory of continence. I have
spoken to the same effect elsewhere.(3) "When a woman marries more than
once--whether she does so twice or three times matters little--she ceases
to be a monogamist. 'All things are lawful ... but all things are not
expedient.'(4) I do not condemn digamists or trigamists, or even, to put an
impossible case, octogamists. Let a woman have an eighth husband if she
must; only let her cease to prostitute herself."

   19. I will come now to the passage in which I am accused of saying
that--at least according to the true Hebrew text--the words "God saw that
it was good"(5) are not inserted after the second day of the creation, as
they are after the first, third, and remaining ones, and of adding
immediately the following comment:(6) "We are meant to understand that
there is something not good in the number two, separating us as it does
from unity, and prefiguring the marriage-tie. Just as in the account of
Noah's ark all the animals that enter by twos are unclean, but those of
which an uneven number is taken are clean."(7) In this statement a passing
objection is made to what I have said concerning the second day, whether on
the ground that the words mentioned really occur in the passage, although I
say that they do not occur, or because, assuming them to occur, I have
understood them in a sense different from that which the context evidently
requires. As regards the non-occurrence of the words in question (viz.,
"God saw that it was good"), let them take not my evidence, but that of all
the Jewish and other translators--Aquila(1) namely, Symmachus,(2) and
Theodotion.(3) But if the words, although occurring in the account of the
other days, do not occur in the account of this, either let them give a
more plausible reason than I have done for their non- occurrence, or,
failing such, let them, whether they like it or not, accept the suggestion
which I have made. Furthermore, if in Noah's ark all the animals that enter
by twos are unclean, whilst those of which an uneven number is taken are
clean, and if there is no dispute about the accuracy of the text, let them
explain if they can why it is so written. But if they cannot explain it,
then, whether they will or not, they must embrace my explanation of the
matter. Either produce better fare and ask me to be your guest, or else
rest content with the meal that I offer you, however poor it may be.(4)

   I must now mention the ecclesiastical writers who have dealt with this
question of the odd number. They are, among the Greeks, Clement,
Hippolytus, Origen, Dionysius, Eusebius, Didymus; and, among ourselves,
Tertullian, Cyprian, Victorinus, Lactantius, Hilary. What Cyprian said to
Fortunatus about the number seven is clear from the letter which he sent to
him.(5) Or perhaps I ought to bring forward the reasonings of Pythagoras,
Archytas of Tarentum, and Publius Scipio in (Cicero's) sixth book
"Concerning the Common Weal." If my detractors will not listen to any of
these I will make the grammar schools shout in their ears the words of
Virgil:

   Uneven numbers are the joy of God.(6)

   20. To say, as I have done, that virginity is cleaner than wedlock,
that the even numbers must give way to the odd, that the types of the Old
Testament establish the truth of the Gospel: this, it appears, is a great
sin subversive of the churches and intolerable to the world. The remaining
points which are censured in my treatise are, I take it, of less
importance, or else resolve themselves into this. I have, therefore,
refrained from answering them, both that I may not exceed the limit at my
disposal, and that I may not seem to distrust your intelligence, knowing as
I do that you are ready to be my champion even before I ask you. With my
last breath, then, I protest that neither now nor at any former time have I
condemned marriage. I have merely answered an opponent without any fear
that they of my own party would lay snares for me. I extol virginity to the
skies, not because I myself possess it, but because, not possessing it, I
admire it all the more. Surely it is a modest and ingenuous confession to
praise in others that which you lack yourself. The weight of my body keeps
me fixed to the ground, but do I fail to admire the flying birds or to
praise the dove because, in the words of Virgil,(1) it

   "Glides on its liquid path with motionless swift wings?"

Let no man deceive himself, let no man, giving ear to the voice of
flattery, rush upon ruin. The first virginity man derives from his birth,
the second from his second birth.(2) The words are not mine; it is an old
saying, "No man can serve two masters;"(3) that is, the flesh and the
spirit. For "the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against
the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other," so that we cannot
do the things that we would.(4) When, then, anything in my little work
seems to you harsh, have regard not to my words, but to the Scripture,
whence they are taken.

   21. Christ Himself is a virgin;(5) and His mother is also a virgin;
yea, though she is His mother, she is a virgin still. For Jesus has entered
in through the closed doors,(6) and in His sepulchre--a new one hewn out of
the hardest rock--no man is laid either before Him or after Him.(7) Mary is
"a garden enclosed ... a fountain sealed,"(8) and from that fountain flows,
according to Joel,(9) the river which waters the torrent bed either" of
cords or of thorns;(11) the cords being those of the sins by which we were
beforetime bound,(12) the thorns those which choked the seed the goodman of
the house had sown.(13) She is the east gate, spoken of by the prophet
Ezekiel,(14) always shut and always shining, and either concealing or
revealing the Holy of Holies; and through her "the Sun of
Righteousness,"(15) our "high priest after the order of Melchizedek,"(16)
goes in and out. Let my critics explain to me how Jesus can have entered in
through closed doors when He allowed His hands and His side to be handled,
and showed that He had bones and flesh," thus proving that His was a true
body and no mere phantom of one, and I will explain how the holy Mary can
be at once a mother and a virgin. A mother before she was wedded, she
remained a virgin after bearing her son. Therefore, as I was going to say,
the virgin Christ and the virgin Mary have dedicated in themselves the
first fruits of virginity for both sexes.(1) The apostles have either been
virgins or, though married, have lived celibate lives. Those persons who
are chosen to be bishops, priests, and deacons are either virgins or
widowers; or at least when once they have received the priesthood, are
vowed to perpetual chastity. Why do we delude ourselves and feel vexed if
while we are continually straining after sexual indulgence, we find the
palm of chastity denied to us? We wish to fare sumptuously, and to enjoy
the embraces of our wives, yet at the same time we desire to reign with
Christ among virgins and widows. Shall there be but one reward, then, for
hunger and for excess, for filth and for finery, for sackcloth and for
silk? Lazarus,(2) in his lifetime, received evil things, and the rich man,
clothed in purple, fat and sleek, while he lived enjoyed the good things of
the flesh but, now that they are dead, they occupy different positions.
Misery has given place to satisfaction, and satisfaction to misery. And it
rests with us whether we will follow Lazarus or the rich man.

LETTER XLIX: TO PAMMACHIUS.

Jerome encloses the preceding letter, thanks Pammachius for his efforts to
suppress his treatise "against Jovinian," but declares these to be useless,
and exhorts him, if he still has any hesitation in his mind, to turn to the
Scriptures and the commentaries made upon them by Origen and others.
Written at the same time as the preceding letter.

   1. Christian modesty sometimes requires us to be silent even to our
friends, and to nurse our humility in peace, where the renewal of an old
friendship would expose us l to the charge of self-seeking. Thus, when you
have kept silence I have kept silence too, and have not cared to
remonstrate with you, lest I should be thought more anxious to conciliate a
person of influence than to cultivate a friend. But, now that it has become
a duty to reply to your letter, I will endeavor always to be beforehand
with you, and not so much to answer your queries as to write independently
of them. Thus, if I have shown my modesty hitherto by silence, I will
henceforth show it still more by coming forward to speak.

   2. I quite recognize the kindness and forethought which have induced
you to withdraw from circulation some copies of my work against Jovinian.
Your diligence, however, has been of no avail, for several people coming
from the city have repeatedly read aloud to me passages which they have
come across in Rome. In this province, also, the books have already been
circulated; and, as you have read yourself in Horace, "Words once uttered
cannot be recalled."(1) I am not so fortunate as are most of the writers of
the day--able, that is, to correct my trifles whenever I like. When once I
have written anything, either my admirers or my ill-wishers--from different
motives, but with equal zeal--sow my work broadcast among the public; and
their language, whether it is that of eulogy or of criticism, is apt to run
to excess.(2) They are guided not by the merits of the piece, but by their
own angry feelings. Accordingly, I have done what I could. I have dedicated
to you a defence of the work in question, feeling sure that when you have
read it you will yourself satisfy the doubts of others on my behalf; or
else, if you too turn up your nose at the task, you will have to explain in
some new manner that section of the apostle(3) in which he discusses
virginity and marriage.

   3. I do not speak thus that I may provoke you to write on the subject
yourself-- although I know your zeal in the study of the sacred writings to
be greater than my own--but that you may compel my tormentors to do so.
They are educated; in their own eyes no mean scholars; competent not merely
to censure but to instruct me. If they write on the subject, my view will
be the sooner neglected when it is compared with theirs. Read, I pray you,
and diligently consider the words of the apostle, and you will then see
that--with a view to avoid misrepresentation--I have been much more gentle
towards married persons than he was disposed to be. Origen, Dionysius,
Pierius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Didymus, Apollinaris, have used great
latitude in the interpretation of this epistle.(4) When Pierius, sifting
and expounding the apostle's meaning, comes to the words, "I would that all
men were even as I myself,"(5) he makes this comment upon them: "In saying
this Paul plainly preaches abstinence from marriage." Is the fault here
mine, or am I responsible for harshness? Compared with this sentence of
Pierius,(1) all that I have ever written is mild indeed. Consult the
commentaries of the above-named writers and take advantage of the Church
libraries; you will then more speedily finish as you would wish the
enterprise which you have so happily begun.(2)

   4. I hear that the hopes of the entire city are centred in you, and
that bishop(3) and people are, agreed in wishing for your exaltation. To be
a bishop (4 is much, to deserve to be one is more.

   If you read the books of the sixteen prophets(5) which I have rendered
into Latin from the Hebrew; and if, when you have done so, you express
satisfaction with my labors, the news will encourage me to take out of my
desk some other works now shut up in it. I have lately translated Job into
our mother tongue: you will be able to borrow a copy of it from your
cousin, the saintly Marcella. Read it both in Greek and in Latin, and
compare the old version with my rendering. You will then clearly see that
the difference between them is that between truth and falsehood. Some of my
commentaries upon the twelve prophets I have sent to the reverend father
Domnio, also the four books of Kings--that is, the two called Samuel and
the two called Malachim.(6) If you care to read these you will learn for
yourself how difficult it is to understand the Holy Scriptures, and
particularly the prophets; and how through the fault of the translators
passages which for the Jews flow clearly on for us abound with mistakes.
Once more, you must not in my small writings look for any such eloquence as
that which for Christ's sake you disregard in Cicero. A version made for
the use of the Church, even though it may possess a literary charm, ought
to disguise and avoid it as far as possible; in order that it may not speak
to the idle schools and few disciples of the philosophers, but may address
itself rather to the entire human race.

LETTER L: TO DOMNIO.

Domnio, a Roman (called in Letter XLV. "the Lot of our time"), had written
to Jerome to tell him that an ignorant monk had been traducing his books
"against Jovinian." Jerome, in reply, sharply rebukes the folly of his
critic and comments on the want of straightforwardness in his conduct. He
concludes the letter with an emphatic restatement of his original position.
Written in 394 A.D.

   1. Your letter is full at once of affection and of complaining. The
affection is your own, which prompts you unceasingly to warn me of
impending danger, and which makes you on my behalf

   :Of safest things distrustful and afraid."(1)

The complaining is of those who have no love for me, and seek an occasion
against me in my sins. They speak against their brother, they slander their
own mother's son.(2) You write to me of these--nay, of one in particular--a
lounger who is to be seen in the streets, at crossings, and in public
places; a monk who is a noisy news-monger, clever only in detraction, and
eager, in spite of the beam in his own eye, to remove the mote in his
neighbor's.(3) And you tell me that he preaches publicly against me,
gnawing, rending, and tearing asunder with his fangs the books that I have
written against Jovinian. You inform me, moreover, that this home-grown
dialectician, this mainstay of the Plautine company, has read neither the
"Categories" of Aristotle nor his treatise "On Interpretation," nor his
"Analytics," nor yet the "Topics" of Cicero, but that, moving as he does
only in uneducated circles, and frequenting no society but that of weak
women, he ventures to construct illogical syllogisms and to unravel by
subtle arguments what he is pleased to call my sophisms. How foolish I have
been to suppose that without philosophy there can be no knowledge of these
subjects; and to account it a more important part of composition to erase
than to write! In vain have I perused the commentaries of Alexander; to no
purpose has a skilled teacher used the "Introduction" of Porphyry to
instruct me in logic; and--to make light of human learning--I have gained
nothing at all by having Gregory of Nazianzum and Didymus as my catechists
in the Holy Scriptures. My acquisition of Hebrew has been wasted labor; and
so also has been the daily study which from my youth I have bestowed upon
the Law and the Prophets, the Gospels and the Apostles.

   2. Here we have a man who has reached perfection without a teacher, so
as to be a vehicle of the spirit and a self-taught genius. He surpasses
Cicero in eloquence, Aristotle in argument, Plato in discretion,
Aristarchus in learning, Didymus, that man of brass, in the number of his
books; and not only Didymus, but all the writers of his time in his
knowledge of the Scriptures. It is reported that you have only to give him
a theme and he is always ready--like Carneades(1)--to argue on this side or
on that, for justice or against it. The world escaped a great danger, and
civil actions and suits concerning succession were saved from a yawning
gulf on the day when, despising the bar, he transferred himself to the
Church. For, had he been unwilling, who could ever have been proved
innocent? And, if he once began to reckon the points of the case upon his
fingers, and to spread his syllogistic nets, what criminal would his
pleading have failed to save? Had he but stamped his foot, or fixed his
eyes, or knitted his brow, or moved his hand, or twirled his beard, he
would at once have thrown dust in the eyes of the jury. No wonder that such
a complete Latinist and so profound a master of eloquence overcomes poor
me, who--as I have been some time(2) away (from Rome), and without
opportunities for speaking Latin--am half a Greek if not altogether a
barbarian. No wonder, I say, that he overcomes me when his eloquence has
crushed Jovinian in person. Good Jesus! what! even Jovinian that great and
clever man! So clever, indeed, that no one can understand his writings, and
that when he sings it is only for himself--and for the muses!

   3. Pray, my dear father, warn this man not to hold language contrary to
his profession, and not to undo with his words the chastity which he
professes by his garb. Whether he elects to be a virgin or a married
celibate--and the choice must rest with himself--he must not compare wives
with virgins, for that would be to have striven in vain against Jovinian's
eloquence. He likes, I am told, to visit the cells of widows and virgins,
and to lecture them with his brows knit on sacred literature. What is it
that he teaches these poor women in the privacy of their own chambers? Is
it to feel assured that virgins are no better than wives? Is it to make the
most of the flower of their age, to eat and drink, to frequent the baths,
to live in luxury, and not to disdain the use of perfumes? Or does he
preach to them chastity, fasting, and neglect of their persons? No doubt
the precepts that he inculcates are full of virtue. But if so, let him
admit publicly what he says privately. Or, if his private teaching is the
same as his public, he should keep aloof altogether from the society of
girls. He is a young man--a monk, and in his own eyes an eloquent one (do
not pearls fall from his lips, and are not his elegant phrases sprinkled
with comic salt and humor?)--I am surprised, therefore, that he can without
a blush frequent noblemen's houses, pay constant visits to married ladies,
make our religion a subject of contention, distort the faith of Christ by
misapplying words, and--in addition to all this--detract from one who is
his brother in the Lord. He may, however, have supposed me to be in error
(for "in many things we offend all," and" if any man offend not in word he
is a perfect man"(1)). In that case he should have written to convict me or
to question me, the course taken by Pammachius, a man of high attainments
and position. To this latter I defended myself as best I could, and in a
lengthy letter explained the exact sense of my words. He might at least
have copied the diffidence which led you to extract and arrange such
passages as seemed to give offence; asking me for corrections or
explanations, and not supposing me so mad that in one and the same book I
should write for marriage and against it.

   4. Let him spare himself, let him spare me, let him spare the Christian
name. Let him realize his position as a monk, not by talking and arguing,
but by holding his peace and sitting still. Let him read the words of
Jeremiah: "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He
sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him."(2)
Or if he has really the right to apply the censor's rod to all writers, and
fancies himself a man of learning because he alone understands Jovinian
(you know the proverb: Balbus best knows what Balbus means); yet, as
Atilius(3) reminds us, "we are not all writers." Jovinian himself--an
unlettered man of letters if ever there was one-- will with most justice
proclaim the fact to him. "That the bishops condemn me," he says, "is not
reason but treason. I want no answers from nobodies, who, while they have
authority to put me down, have not the wit to teach me. Let one write
against me who has a tongue that I can understand, and whom to vanquish
will be to vanquish all.

   "'I know full well: believe me, I have felt
   The hero's force when rising o'er his shield
   He hurls his whizzing spear.'(1)

He is strong in argument, intricate and tenacious, one to fight with his
head down. Often has he cried out against me in the streets from late one
night till early the next. He is a well-built man, and his thews are those
of an athlete. Secretly I believe him to be a follower of my teaching. He
never blushes or stops to weigh his words: his only aim is to speak as loud
as possible. So famous is he for his eloquence that his sayings are held up
as models to our curly-headed youngsters.(2) How often, when I have met him
at meetings, has he aroused my wrath and put me into a passion! How often
has he spat upon me, and then departed spat upon! But these are vulgar
methods, and any of my followers can use them. I appeal to books, to those
memorials which must be handed down to posterity. Let us speak by our
writings, that the silent reader may judge between us; and that, as I have
a flock of disciples, he may have one also-- flatterers and parasites
worthy of the Gnatho and Phormio(8) who is their master."

   5. It is no difficult matter, my dear Domnio, to chatter at street
corners or in apothecaries' shops and to pass judgment on the world. "So-
and-so has made a good speech, so-and-so a bad one; this man knows the
Scriptures, that one is crazy; this man talks glibly, that never says a
word at all." But who considers him worthy thus to judge every one? To make
an outcry against a man in every street, and to heap, not definite charges,
but vague imputations, on his head, is nothing. Any buffoon or litigiously
disposed person can do as much. Let him put forth his hand, put pen to
paper, and bestir himself; let him write books and prove in them all he
can. Let him give me a chance of replying to his eloquence. I can return
bite for bite, if I like; when hurt myself, I can fix my teeth in my
opponent. I too have had a liberal education. As Juvenal says, "I also have
often withdrawn my hand from the ferule."(4) Of me, too, it may be said in
the words of Horace, "Flee from him; he has hay on his horn."(5) But I
prefer to be a disciple of Him who says, "I gave my back to the smiters ...
I hid not my face from shame and spitting."(6) When He was reviled He
reviled not again. After the buffeting, the cross, the scourge, the
blasphemies, at the very last He prayed for His crucifiers, saying,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."(1) I, too, pardon
the error of a brother. He has been deceived, I feel sure, by the art of
the devil. Among the women he was held clever and eloquent; but, when my
poor writings reached Rome, dreading me as a rival, he tried to rob me of
my laurels. No man on earth, he resolved, should please his eloquent self,
unless such as commanded respect rather than sought it, and showed
themselves men to be feared more than favored. A man of consummate address,
he desired, like an old soldier, with one stroke of the sword to strike
down both his enemies,(2) and to make clear to every one that, whatever
view he might take, Scripture was always with him. Well, he must condescend
to send me his account of the matter, and to correct my indiscreet
language, not by censure but by instruction. If he tries to do this, he
will find that what seems forcible on a lounge is not equally forcible in
court; and that it is one thing to discuss the doctrines of the divine law
amid the spindles and work-baskets of girls and another to argue concerning
them among men of education. As it is, without hesitation or shame, he
raises again and again the noisy shout, "Jerome condemns marriage," and,
whilst he constantly moves among women with child, crying infants, and
marriage-beds, he suppresses the words of the apostle just to cover me--
poor me--with odium. However, when he comes by and by to write books and to
grapple with me at close quarters, then he will feel it, then he will stick
fast; Epicurus and Aristippus(3) will not be near him then; the
swineherds(4) will not come to his aid; the prolific sow(6) will not so
much as grunt. For I also may say, with Turnus:

   Father, I too can launch a forceful spear,
   And when I strike blood follows from the wound.(6)

But if he refuses to write, and fancies that abuse is as effective as
criticism, then, in spite of all the lands and seas and peoples which lie
between us, he must hear at least the echo of my cry, "I do not condemn
marriage," "I do not condemn wedlock." Indeed-- and this I say to make my
meaning quite clear to him--I should like every one to take a wife who,
because they get frightened in the night, cannot manage to sleep alone.(7)

LETTER LI: FROM EPIPHANIUS, BISHOP OF SALAMIS, IN CYPRUS, TO JOHN, BISHOP
OF JERUSALEM.

A coolness had arisen between these two bishops in connection with the
Origenistic controversy, which at this time was at its height. Epiphanius
had openly charged John with being an Origenist, and had also uncanonically
conferred priests' orders on Jerome's brother Paulinian, in order that the
monastery at Bethlehem might henceforth be entirely independent of John.
Naturally, John resented this conduct and showed his resentment. The
present letter is a kind of half-apology made by Epiphanius for what he had
done, and like all such, it only seems to have made matters worse. The
controversy is fully detailed in the treatise "Against John of Jerusalem"
in this volume, esp. 11-14.

An interesting paragraph (# 9) narrates how Epiphanius destroyed at
Anablatha a church-curtain on which was depicted "a likeness of Christ or
of some saint"--an early instance of the iconoclastic spirit.

Originally written in Greek, the letter was (by the writer's request)
rendered into Latin by Jerome. Its date is 394 A.D.

   To the lord bishop and dearly beloved brother, John, Epiphanius sends
greeting.

   1. It surely becomes us, dearly beloved, not to abuse our rank as
clergy, so as to make it an occasion of pride, but by diligently keeping
and observing God's commandments, to be in reality what in name we profess
to be. For, if the Holy Scriptures say, "Their lots shall not profit
them,"(1) what pride in our clerical position(2) will be able to avail us
who sin not only in thought and feeling, but in speech? I have heard, of
course, that you are incensed against me, that you are angry, and that you
threaten to write about me--not merely to particular places and provinces,
but to the uttermost ends of the earth. Where is that fear of God which
should make us tremble with the trembling spoken of by the Lord--"Whosoever
is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the
judgment"?(3) Not that I greatly care for your writing what you please. For
Isaiah tells us(4) of letters written on papyrus and cast upon the waters -
- missives soon carried away by time and tide. I have done you no harm, I
have inflicted no injury upon you, I have extorted nothing from you by
violence. My action concerned a monastery whose inmates were foreigners in
no way subject to your provincial jurisdiction. Moreover their regard for
my insignificance and for the letters which I frequently addressed to them
had commenced to produce a feeling of dislike to communion with you.
Feeling, therefore, that too great strictness or scrupulosity on my part
might have the effect of alienating them from the Church with its ancient
faith, I ordained one of the brothers deacon, and after he had ministered
as such, admitted him to the priesthood. You should, I think, have been
grateful to me for this, knowing, as you surely must, that it is the fear
of God which has compelled me to act in this way, and particularly when you
recollect that God's priesthood is everywhere the same, and that I have
simply made provision for the wants of the Church. For, although each
individual bishop of the Church has under him churches which are placed in
his charge, and although no man may stretch himself beyond his measure,(1)
yet the love of Christ, which is without dissimulation,(2) is set up as an
example to us all; and we must consider not so much the thing done as the
time and place, the mode and motive, of doing it. I saw that the monastery
contained a large number of reverend brothers, and that the reverend
presbyters, Jerome and Vincent, through modesty and humility, were
unwilling to offer the sacrifices permitted to their rank, and to labor in
that part of their calling which ministers more than any other to the
salvation of Christians. I knew, moreover, that you could not find or lay
hands on this servant of God(3) who had several times fled from you simply
because he was reluctant to undertake the onerous duties of the priesthood,
and that no other bishop could easily find him. Accordingly, I was a good
deal surprised when, by the ordering of God, he came to me with the deacons
of the monastery and others of the brethren, to make satisfaction to me for
some grievance or other which I had against them. While, therefore, the
Collect(4) was being celebrated in the church of the villa which adjoins
our monastery--he being quite ignorant and wholly unsuspicious of my
purpose--I gave orders to a number of deacons to seize him and to stop his
mouth, lest in his eagerness to free himself he might adjure me in the name
of Christ. First of all, then, I ordained him deacon, setting before him
the fear of God, and forcing him to minister; for he made a hard struggle
against it, crying out that he was unworthy, and protesting that this heavy
burden was beyond his strength. It was with difficulty, then, that I
overcame his reluctance, persuading him as well as I could with passages
from Scripture, and setting before him the commandments of God. And when he
had ministered in the offering of the holy sacrifices, once more with great
difficulty I closed his mouth and ordained him presbyter. Then, using the
same arguments as before, I induced him to sit in the place set apart for
the presbyters. After this I wrote to the reverend presbyters and other
brothers of the monastery, chiding them for not having written to me about
him. For a year before I had heard many of them complain that they had no
one to celebrate for them the sacraments of the Lord. All then agreed in
asking him to undertake the duty, pointing out how great his usefulness
would be to the community of the monastery. I blamed them for omitting to
write to me and to propose that I should ordain him, when the opportunity
was given to them to do so.

   2. All this I have done, as I said just now, relying on that Christian
love which you, I feel sure, cherish towards my insignificance; not to
mention the fact that I held the ordination in a monastery, and not within
the limits of your jurisdiction. How truly blessed is the mildness and
complacency of the bishops of (my own) Cyprus, as well as their simplicity,
though to your refinement and discrimination it appears deserving only of
God's pity! For many bishops in communion with me have ordained presbyters
in my province whom I had been unable to capture, and have sent to me
deacons and subdeacons(1) whom I have been glad to receive. I myself, too,
have urged the bishop Philo of blessed memory, and the reverend Theoprepus,
to make provision for the Church of Christ by ordaining presbyters in those
churches of Cyprus which, although they were accounted to belong to my see,
happened to be close to them, and this for the reason that my province was
large and straggling. But for my part I have never ordained deaconesses nor
sent them into the provinces of others,(2) nor have I done anything to rend
the Church. Why, then, have you thought fit to be so angry and indignant
with me for that work of God which I have wrought for the edification of
the brethren, and not for their destruction?(3) Moreover, I have been much
surprised at the assertion which you have made to my clergy, that you sent
me a message by that reverend presbyter, the abbot Gregory, that I was to
ordain no one, and that I promised to comply, saying, "Am I a stripling, or
do I not know the canons?" By God's word I am telling you the truth when I
say that I know and have heard nothing of all this, and that I have not the
slightest recollection of using any language of the sort. As, however, I
have had misgivings, lest possibly, being only a man, I may have forgotten
this among so many other matters, I have made inquiry of the reverend
Gregory, and of the presbyter Zeno, who is with him. Of these, the abbot
Gregory replies that he knows nothing whatever about the matter, while Zeno
says that the presbyter Rufinus, in the course of some desultory remarks,
spoke these words. "Will the reverend bishop, think you, venture to ordain
any persons?" but that the conversation went no further. I, Epiphanius,
however, have never either received the message or answered it. Do not,
then, dearly beloved, allow your anger to overcome you or your indignation
to get the better of you, lest, you should disquiet yourself in vain; and
lest you should be thought to be putting forward this grievance only to get
scope for tendencies of another kind,(1) and thus to have sought out an
occasion of sinning. It is to avoid this that the prophet prays to the
Lord, saying: "Turn not aside my heart to words of wickedness, to making
excuses for my sins."(2)

   3. This also I have been surprised to hear, that certain persons who
are in the habit of carrying tales backwards and forwards, and of always
adding something fresh to what they have heard, to stir up grievances and
disputes between brothers, have succeeded in disquieting you by saying
that, when I offer sacrifices to God, I am wont to say this prayer on your
behalf: "Grant, O Lord, to John grace to believe aright." Do not suppose me
so untutored as to be capable of saying this so openly. To tell you the
simple truth, my dearest brother, although I continually use this prayer
mentally, I have never confided it to the ears of others, lest I should
seem to dishonor you. But when I repeat the prayers required by the ritual
of the mysteries, then I say on behalf of all and of you as well as others,
"Guard him, that he may preach the truth," or at least this, "Do Thou, O
Lord, grant him Thine aid, and guard him, that he may preach the word of
truth, "as occasion offers itself for the words, and as the turn comes for
the particular prayer. Wherefore I beseech you, dearly beloved, and,
casting myself down at your feet, I entreat you to grant to me and to
yourself this one prayer, that you would save yourself, as it is written,
"from an untoward generation." Withdraw, dearly beloved, from the heresy of
Origen and from all heresies. For I see that all your indignation has been
roused against me simply because I have told you that you ought not to
eulogize one who is the spiritual father of Arius, and the root and parent
of all heresies. And when I appealed to you not to go astray, and warned
you of the consequences, you traversed my words, and reduced me to tears
and sadness; and not me only, but many other Catholics who were present.(2)
This I take to be the origin of your indignation and of your passion on the
present occasion. On this account you threaten to send out letters against
me, and to circulate your version of the matter in all directions;(3) and
thus, while with a view to defending your heresy you kindle men's passions
against me, you break through the charity which I have shown towards you,
and act with so little discretion that you make me regret that I have held
communion with you, and that I have by so doing upheld the erroneous
opinions of Origen.

   4. I speak plainly. To use the language of Scripture, I do not spare to
pluck out my own eye if it cause me to offend, nor to cut off my hand and
my foot if they cause me to do so.(4) And you must be treated in the same
way whether you are my eyes, or my hands, or my feet. For what Catholic,
what Christian who adorns his faith with good works, can hear with calmness
Origen's teaching and counsel, or believe in his extraordinary preaching?
"The Son," he tells us, "cannot see the Father, and the Holy Spirit cannot
see the Son." These words occur in his book "On First Principles;" thus we
read, and thus Origen has spoken. "For as it is unsuitable to say that the
Son can see the Father, it is consequently unsuitable to suppose that the
Spirit can see the Son."(5) Can any one, moreover, brook Origen's assertion
that men's souls were once angels in heaven, and that having sinned in the
upper world, they have been cast down into this, and have been confined in
bodies as in barrows or tombs, to pay the penalty for their former sins;
and that the bodies of believers are not temples of Christ but prisons of
the condemned? Again, he tampers with the true meaning of the narrative by
a false use of allegory, multiplying words without limit; and undermines
the faith of the simple by the most varied arguments. Now he maintains that
souls, in Greek the "cool things," from a word meaning to be cool,(1) are
so called because in coming down from the heavenly places to the lower
world they have lost their former heat;(2) and now, that our bodies are
called by the Greeks chains, from a word meaning chain,(3) or else (on the
analogy of our own Latin word) "things fallen,"(4) because our souls have
fallen from heaven; and that the other word for body which the abundance of
the Greek idiom supplies(5) is by many taken to mean a funeral monument,(6)
because the soul is shut up within it in the same way as the corpses of the
dead are shut up in tombs and barrows. If this doctrine is true what
becomes of our faith? Where is the preaching of the resurrection? Where is
the teaching of the apostles, which lasts on to this day in the churches of
Christ? Where is the blessing to Adam, and to his seed, and to Noah and his
sons? "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."(7) According to
Origen, these words must be a curse and not a blessing; for he turns angels
into human souls, compelling them to leave the place of highest rank and to
come down lower, as though God were unable through the action of His
blessing to grant souls to the human race, had the angels not sinned, and
as though for every birth on earth there must be a fall in heaven. We are
to give up, then, the teaching of apostles and prophets, of the law, and of
our Lord and Saviour Himself, in spite of His language loud as thunder in
the gospel. Origen, on the other hand, commands and urges--not to say
binds--his disciples not to pray to ascend into heaven, lest sinning once
more worse than they had sinned on earth they should be hurled down into
the world again. Such foolish and insane notions he generally confirms by
distorting the sense of the Scriptures and making them mean what they do
not mean at all. He quotes this passage from the Psalms: "Before thou didst
humble me by reason of my wickedness, I went wrong;"(8) and this, "Return
unto thy rest, O my soul;"(9) this also, "Bring my soul out of prison;"(10)
and this, "I will make confession unto the Lord in the land of the
living,"(1) although there can be no doubt that the meaning of the divine
Scripture is different from the interpretation by which he unfairly wrests
it to the support of his own heresy. This way of acting is common to the
Manichaeans, the Gnostics, the Ebionites, the Marcionites, and the votaries
of the other eighty heresies,(2) all of whom draw their proofs from the
pure well of the Scriptures, not, however, interpreting it in the sense in
which it is written, but trying to make the simple language of the Church's
writers accord with their own wishes.

   5. Of one position which he strives to maintain I hardly know whether
it calls for my tears or my laughter. This wonderful doctor presumes to
teach that the devil will once more be what he at one time was, that he
will return to his former dignity and rise again to the kingdom of heaven.
Oh horror! that a man should be so frantic and foolish as to hold that John
the Baptist, Peter, the apostle and evangelist John, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
the rest of the prophets, are made co-heirs of the devil in the kingdom of
heaven! I pass over his idle explanation of the coats of skins,(3) and say
nothing of the efforts and arguments he has used to induce us to believe
that these coats of skins represent human bodies. Among many other things,
he says this: "Was God a tanner or a saddler, that He should prepare the
hides of animals, and should stitch from them coats of skins for Adam and
Eve?" "It is clear," he goes on, "that he is speaking of human bodies." If
this is so, how is it that before the coats of skins, and the disobedience,
and the fall from paradise, Adam speaks not in an allegory, but literally,
thus: "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;"(4) or what is
the ground of the divine narrative, "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up
the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from
man, made He a woman"(5) for him? Or what bodies can Adam and Eve have
covered with fig-leaves after eating of the forbidden tree?(6) Who can
patiently listen to the perilous arguments of Origen when he denies the
resurrection of this flesh, as he most clearly does in his book of
explanations of the first psalm and in many other places? Or who can
tolerate him when he gives us a paradise in the third heaven, and transfers
that which the Scripture mentions from earth to the heavenly places, and
when he explains allegorically all the trees which are mentioned in
Genesis, saying in effect that the trees are angelic potencies, a sense
which the true drift of the passage does not admit? For the divine
Scripture has not said, "God put down Adam and Eve upon the earth," but "He
drove them out of the paradise, and made them dwell over against the
paradise."(1) He does not say "under the paradise." "He placed ...
cherubims and a flaming sword ... to keep the way of (2) the tree of
life."(3) He says nothing about an ascent to it. "And a river went out of
Eden."(4) He does not say "went down from Eden." "It was parted and became
into four heads. The name of the first is Pison ... and the name of the
second is Gihon."(5) I myself have seen the waters of Gihon, have seen them
with my bodily eyes. It is this Gihon to which Jeremiah points when he
says, "What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt to drink the muddy water of
Gihon?"(6) I have drunk also from the great river Euphrates, not spiritual
but actual water, such as you can touch with your hand and imbibe with your
mouth. But where there are rivers which admit of being seen and of being
drunk, it follows that there also there will be fig-trees and other trees;
and it is of these that the Lord says, "Of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat."(7) They are like other trees and timber, just as the
rivers are like other rivers and waters. But if the water is visible and
real, then the fig-tree and the rest of the timber must be real also, and
Adam and Eve must have been originally formed with real and not phantasmal
bodies, and not, as Origen would have us believe, have afterwards received
them on account of their sin. But, you say, "we read that Saint Paul was
caught up to the third heaven, into paradise."(8) You explain the words
rightly: "When he mentions the third heaven, and then adds the word
paradise, he shows that heaven is in one place and paradise in another."
Must not every one reject and despise such special pleading as that by
which Origen says of the waters that are above the firmament(9) that they
are not waters, but heroic beings of angelic power,(10) and again of the
waters that are over the earth--that is, below the firmament--that they are
potencies(1) of the contrary sort--that is, demons? If so, why do we read
in the account of the deluge that the windows of heaven were opened, and
that the waters of the deluge prevailed? in consequence of which the
fountains of the deep were opened, and the whole earth was covered with the
waters.(2)

   6. Oh! the madness and folly of those who have forsaken the teaching of
the book of Proverbs, "My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake
not the law of thy mother,"(3) and have turned to error, and say to the
fool that he shall be their leader, and do not despise the foolish things
which are said by the foolish man, even as the scripture bears witness,
"The foolish man speaketh foolishly, and his heart understandeth
vanity."(4) I beseech you, dearly beloved, and by the love which I feel
towards you, I implore you--as though it were my own members on which I
would have pity(5)--by word and letter to fulfil that which is written, "Do
not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those
that rise up against thee?"(6) Origen's words are the words of an enemy,
hateful and repugnant to God and to His saints; and not only those which I
have quoted, but countless others. For it is not now my intention to argue
against all his opinions. Origen has not lived in my day, nor has he robbed
me. I have not conceived a dislike to him nor quarrelled with him because
of an inheritance or of any worldly matter; but--to speak plainly--I
grieve, and grieve bitterly, to see numbers of my brothers, and of those in
particular who show the most promise, and have reached the highest rank in
the sacred ministry,(7) deceived by his persuasive arguments, and made by
his most perverse teaching the food of the devil, whereby the saying is
fulfilled: "He derides every stronghold, and his fare is choice, and he
hath gathered captives as the sand."(8) But may God free you, my brother,
and the holy people of Christ which is intrusted to you, and all the
brothers who are with you, and especially the presbyter Rufinus, from the
heresy of Origen, and other heresies, and from the perdition to which they
lead. For, if for one word or for two opposed to the faith many heresies
have been rejected by the Church, how much more shall he be held a heretic
who has contrived such perverse interpretations and such mischievous
doctrines to destroy the faith, and has in fact declared himself the enemy
of the Church! For, among other wicked things, he has presumed to say this,
too, that Adam lost the image of God, although Scripture nowhere declares
that he did. Were it so, never would all the creatures in the world be
subject to Adam's seed--that is, to the entire human race--yet, in the
words of the apostle, everything "is tamed and hath been tamed of
mankind."(1) For never would all things be subjected to men if men had not-
- together with their authority over all--the image of God. But the divine
Scripture conjoins and associates with this the grace of the blessing which
was conferred upon Adam and upon the generations which descended from him.
No one can by twisting the meaning of words presume to say that this grace
of God was given to one only, and that he alone was made in the image of
God (he and his wife, that is, for while he was formed of clay she was made
of one of his ribs), but that those who were subsequently conceived in the
womb and not born as was Adam did not possess God's image, for the
Scripture immediately subjoins the following statement: "And Adam lived two
hundred and thirty years,(2) and knew Eve his wife, and she bare him a son
in his image and after his likeness, and called his name Seth."(3) And
again, in the tenth generation, two thousand two hundred and forty-two
years afterwards,(4) God, to vindicate His own image and to show that the
grace which He had given to men still continued in them, gives the
following commandment: "Flesh ... with the blood thereof shall ye not eat.
And surely your blood will I require at the hand of every man that sheddeth
it; for in the image of God have I made man."(5) From Noah to Abraham ten
generations passed away,(6) and from Abraham's time to David's, fourteen
more,(7) and these twenty-four generations make up, taken together, two
thousand one hundred and seventeen years.(8) Yet the Holy Spirit in the
thirty-ninth(9) psalm, while lamenting that all men walk in a vain show,
and that they are subject to sins, speaks thus: "For all that every man
walketh in the image."(1) Also after David's time, in the reign of Solomon
his son, we read a somewhat similar reference to the divine likeness. For
in the book of Wisdom, which is inscribed with his name, Solomon says: "God
created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own
eternity."(2) And again, about eleven hundred and eleven years afterwards,
we read in the New Testament that men have not lost the image of God. For
James, an apostle and brother of the Lord, whom I have mentioned above--
that we may not be entangled in the snares of Origen--teaches us that man
does possess God's image and likeness. For, after a somewhat discursive
account of the human tongue, he has gone on to say of it: "It is an unruly
evil ... therewith bless we God, even the Father and therewith curse we
men, which are made after the similitude of God."(3) Paul, too, the "chosen
vessel,"(4) who in his preaching has fully maintained the doctrine of the
gospel, instructs us that man is made in the image and after the likeness
of God. "A man," he says, "ought not to wear long hair, forasmuch as he is
the image and glory of God."(5) He speaks of "the image" simply, but
explains the nature of the likeness by the word "glory."

   7. Instead of the three proofs from Holy Scripture which you said would
satisfy you if I could produce them, behold I have given you seven. Who,
then, will put up with the follies of Origen? I will not use a severer word
and so make myself like him or his followers, who presume at the peril of
their soul to assert dogmatically whatever first comes into their head, and
to dictate to God, whereas they ought either to pray to Him or to learn the
truth from Him. For some of them say that the image of God which Adam had
previously received was lost when he sinned. Others surmise that the body
which the Son of God was destined to take of Mary was the image of the
Creator. Some identify this image with the soul, others with sensation,
others with virtue. These make it baptism, those assert that it is in
virtue of God's image that man exercises universal sway. Like drunkards in
their cups, they ejaculate now this, now that, when they ought rather to
have avoided so serious a risk, and to have obtained salvation by simple
faith, not denying the words of God. To God they ought to have left the
sure and exact knowledge of His own gift, and of the particular way in
which He has created men in His image and after His likeness. Forsaking
this course, they have involved themselves in many subtle questions, and
through these they have been plunged into the mire of sin. But we, dearly
beloved, believe the words of the Lord, and know that God's image remains
in all men, and we leave it to Him to know in what respect man is created
in His image. And let no one be deceived by that passage in the epistle of
John, which some readers fail to understand, where he says: "Now are we the
sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that,
when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall See Him as He
is."(1) For this refers to the glory which is then to be revealed(2) to His
saints; just as also in another place we read the words "from glory to
glory,"(3) of which glory the saints have even in this world received an
earnest and a small portion. At their head stands Moses, whose face shone
exceedingly, and was bright with the brightness of the sun.(4) Next to him
comes Elijah, who was caught up into heaven in a chariot of fire,(5) and
did not feel the effects of the flame. Stephen, too, when he was being
stoned, had the face of an angel visible to all.(6) And this which we have
verified in a few cases is to be understood of all, that what is written
may be fulfilled. "Every one that sanctifieth himself shall be numbered
among the blessed." For, "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God."(7)

   8. These things being so, dearly beloved, keep watch over your own soul
and cease to murmur against me. For the divine Scripture says: "Neither
murmur ye [one against another(8)] as some of them also murmured, and were
destroyed of serpents."(9) Rather give way to the truth and love me who
love both you and the truth. And may the God of peace, according to His
mercy, grant to us that Satan may be bruised under the feet of
Christians,(10) and that every occasion of evil may be shunned, so that the
bond of love and peace may not be rent asunder between us, or the preaching
of the right faith be anywise hindered.

   9. Moreover, I have heard that certain persons have this grievance
against me: When I accompanied you to the holy place called Bethel, there
to join you in celebrating the Collect,(11) after the use of the Church, I
came to a villa called Anablatha and, as I was passing, saw a lamp burning
there. Asking what place it was, and learning it to be a church, I went in
to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church,
dyed and embroidered.(1) It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the
saints; I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this, and
being loth that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ's church
contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised
the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor
person. They, however, murmured, and said that if I made up my mind to tear
it, it was only fair that I should give them another curtain in its place.
As soon as I heard this, I promised that I would give one, and said that I
would send it at once. Since then there has been some little delay, due to
the fact that I have been seeking a curtain of the best quality to give to
them instead of the former one, and thought it right to send to Cyprus for
one. I have now sent the best that I could find, and I beg that you will
order the presbyter of the place to take the curtain which I have sent from
the hands of the Reader, and that you will afterwards give directions that
curtains of the other sort--opposed as they are to our religion--shall not
be hung up in any church of Christ. A than of your uprightness should be
careful to remove an occasion of offence(2) unworthy alike of the Church of
Christ and of those Christians who are committed to your charge. Beware of
Palladius of Galatia--a man once dear to me, but who now sorely needs God's
pity--for he preaches and teaches the heresy of Origen; and see to it that
he does not seduce any of those who are intrusted to your keeping into the
perverse ways of his erroneous doctrine. I pray that you may fare well in
the Lord.

LETTER LII: TO NEPOTIAN.

Nepotian, the nephew of Heliodorus (for whom see Letter XIV.), had, like
his uncle, abandoned the military for the clerical calling, and was now a
presbyter at Altinum, where Heliodorus was bishop. The letter is a
systematic treatise on the duties of the clergy and on the rule of life
which they ought to adopt. It had a great vogue, and called forth much
indignation against Jerome. Its date is 394 A.D.

   1. Again and again you ask me, my dear Nepotian, in your letters from
over the sea, to draw for you a few rules of life, showing how one who has
renounced the service of the world to become a monk or a clergyman may keep
the straight path of Christ, and not be drawn aside into the haunts of
vice. As a young man, or rather as a boy, and while I was curbing by the
hard life of the desert the first onslaughts of youthful passion, I sent a
letter of remonstrance(1) to your reverend uncle, Heliodorus, which, by the
tears and complainings with which it was filled, showed him the feelings of
the friend whom he had deserted. In it I acted the part suited to my age,
and as I was still aglow with the methods and maxims of the rhetoricians, I
decked it out a good deal with the flourishes of the schools. Now, however,
my head is gray, my brow is furrowed, a dewlap like that of an ox hangs
from my chin, and, as Virgil says,

   "The chilly blood stands still around my heart."(9)

Elsewhere he sings:

   "Old age bears all, even the mind, away."

And a little further on:

   "So many of my songs are gone from me,
   And even my very voice has left me now."(3)

   2. But that I may not seem to quote only profane literature, listen to
the mystical teaching of the sacred writings. Once David had been a man of
war, but at seventy age had chilled him so that nothing would make him
warm. A girl is accordingly sought from the coasts of Israel--Abishag the
Shunamite--to sleep with the king and warm his aged frame.(4) Does it not
seem to you--if you keep to the letter that killeth(5)--like some farcical
story or some broad jest from an Atellan play?(6) A chilly old man is
wrapped up in blankets, and only grows warm in a girl's embrace. Bathsheba
was still living, Abigail was still left, and the remainder of those wives
and concubines whose names the Scripture mentions. Yet they are all
rejected as cold, and only in the one young girl's embrace does the old man
become warm. Abraham was far older than David; still, so long as Sarah
lived he sought no other wife. Isaac counted twice the years of David, yet
never felt cold with Rebekah, old though she was. I say nothing of the
antediluvians, who, although after nine hundred years their limbs must have
been not old merely, but decayed with age, had no recourse to girls'
embraces. Moses, the leader of the Israelites, counted one hundred and
twenty years, yet sought no change from Zipporah.

   3. Who, then, is this Shunamite, this wife and maid, so glowing as to
warm the cold, yet so holy as not to arouse passion in him whom she
warmed?(1) Let Solomon, wisest of men, tell us of his father's favorite;
let the man of peace(2) recount to us the embraces of the man of war.(3)
"Get wisdom," he writes, "get understanding: forget it not; neither decline
from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not and she shall preserve thee:
love her and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore
get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her and she
shall promote thee. She shall bring thee to honor when thou dost embrace
her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory
shall she deliver to thee."(4)

   Almost all bodily excellences alter with age, and while wisdom alone
increases all things else decay. Fasts and vigils and almsdeeds become
harder. So also do sleeping on the ground, moving from place to place,
hospitality to travellers, pleading for the poor, earnestness and
steadfastness in prayer, the visitation of the sick, manual labor to supply
money for alms-giving. All acts, in short, of which the body is the medium
decrease with its decay.

   Now, there are young men still full of life and vigor who, by toil and
burning zeal, as well as by holiness of life and constant prayer to the
Lord Jesus, have obtained knowledge. I do not speak of these, or say that
in them the love of wisdom is cold, for this withers in many of the old by
reason of age. What I mean is that youth, as such, has to cope with the
assaults of passion, and amid the allurements of vice and the tinglings of
the flesh is stifled like a fire among green boughs, and cannot develop its
proper brightness. But when men have employed their youth in commendable
pursuits and have meditated on the law of the Lord day and night,(5) they
learn with the lapse of time, fresh experience and wisdom come as the years
go by, and so from the pursuits of the past their old age reaps a harvest
of delight. Hence that wise man of Greece, Themistocles,(6) perceiving,
after the expiration of one hundred and seven years, that he was on the
verge of the grave, is reported to have said that he regretted extremely
having to leave life just when he was beginning to grow wise. Plato died in
his eighty-first year, his pen still in his hand. Isocrates completed
ninety years and nine in the midst of literary and scholastic work.(1) I
say nothing of other philosophers, such as Pythagoras, Democritus,
Xenocrates, Zeno, and Cleanthes, who in extreme old age displayed the vigor
of youth in the pursuit of wisdom. I pass on to the poets, Homer, Hesiod,
Simonides, Stesichorus, who all lived to a great age, yet at the approach
of death sang each of them a swan song sweeter than their wont.(2)
Sophocles, when charged by his sons with dotage on account of his advanced
years and his neglect of his property, .read out to his judges his recently
composed play of Oedipus, and made so great a display of wisdom--in spite
of the inroads of time--that he changed the decorous silence of the law
court into the applause of the theatre.(3) And no wonder, when Cato the
censor, that most eloquent of Romans, in his old age neither blushed at the
thought of learning Greek nor despaired of succeeding.(4) Homer, for his
part, relates that from the tongue of Nestor, even when quite aged and
helpless, there flowed speech sweeter than honey.(5)

   Even the very name Abishag in its mystic meaning points to the greater
wisdom of old men. For the translation of it is, "My father is over and
above," or "my father's roaring." The term "over and above" is obscure, but
in this passage is indicative of excellence, and implies that the old have
a larger stock of wisdom, and that it even overflows by reason of its
abundance. In another passage "over and above" forms an antithesis to
"necessary." Moreover, Abishag, that is, "roaring," is properly used of the
sound which the waves make, and of the murmur which we hear coming from the
sea. From which it is plain that the thunder of the divine voice dwells in
old men's ears with a volume of sound beyond the voices of men. Again, in
our tongue Shunamite means" scarlet," a hint that the love of wisdom
becomes warm and glowing through religious study. For though the color may
point to the mystery of the Lord's blood, it also sets forth the warm glow
of wisdom. Hence it is a scarlet thread that in Genesis the midwife binds
upon the hand of Pharez--Pharez "the divider," so called because he divided
the partition which had before separated two peoples.(6) So, too, with a
mystic reference to the shedding of blood, it was a scarlet cord which the
harlot Rahab (a type of the church) hung in her window to preserve her
house in the destruction of Jericho.(1) Hence, in another place Scripture
says of holy men: "These are they which came from the warmth of the house
of the father of Rechab."(2) And in the gospel the Lord says: "I am come to
cast fire upon the earth, and fain am I to see it kindled."(3) This was the
fire which, when it was kindled in the disciples' hearts, constrained them
to say: "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us by the
way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?"(4)

   4. To what end, you ask, these recondite references? To show that you
need not expect from me boyish declamation, flowery sentiments, a
meretricious style, and at the close of every paragraph the terse and
pointed aphorisms which call forth approving shouts from those who hear
them. Let Wisdom alone embrace me; let her nestle in my bosom, my Abishag
who grows not old. Undefiled truly is she, and a virgin forever for
although she daily conceives and unceasingly brings to the birth, like Mary
she remains undeflowered. When the apostle says "be fervent in spirit,"(5)
he means "be true to wisdom." And when our Lord in the gospel declares that
in the end of the world--when the shepherd shall grow foolish, according to
the prophecy of Zechariah(6)--"the love of many shall wax cold,"(7) He
means that wisdom shall decay. Hear, therefore--to quote the sainted
Cyprian--"words forcible rather than elegant."(8) Hear one who, though he
is your brother in orders, is in years your father; who can conduct you
from the cradle of faith to spiritual manhood; and who, while he builds up
stage by stage the rules of holy living, can instruct others in instructing
you. I know, of course, that from your reverend uncle, Heliodorus, now a
bishop of Christ, you have learned and are daily learning all that is holy;
and that in him you have before you a rule of life and a pattern of virtue.
Take, then, my suggestions for what they are worth, and compare my precepts
with his. He will teach you the perfection of a monk, and I shall show you
the whole duty of a clergyman.

   5. A clergyman, then, as he serves Christ's church, must first
understand what his name means; and then, when he realizes this, must
endeavor to be that which he is called. For since the Greek word klh^ros
means" lot," or "inheritance," the clergy are so called either because they
are the lot of the Lord, or else because the Lord Himself is their lot and
portion. Now, he who in his own person is the Lord's portion, or has the
Lord for his portion, must so bear himself as to possess the Lord and to be
possessed by Him. He who possesses the Lord, and who says with the prophet,
"The Lord is my portion,"(1) can hold to nothing beside the Lord. For if he
hold to something beside the Lord, the Lord will not be his portion.
Suppose, for instance, that he holds to gold or silver, or possessions or
inlaid furniture; with such portions as these the Lord will not deign to be
his portion. I, if I am the portion of the Lord, and the line of His
heritage,(2) receive no portion among the remaining tribes; but, like the
Priest and the Levite, I live on the tithe,(3) and serving the altar, am
supported by its offerings.(4) Having food and raiment, I shall be content
with these,(5) and as a disciple of the Cross shall share its poverty. I
beseech you, therefore, and

   "Again and yet again admonish you;"(6)

do not look to your military experience for a standard of clerical
obligation. Under Christ's banner seek for no worldly gain, lest having
more than when you first became a clergyman, you hear men say, to your
shame, "Their portion shall not profit them."(7) Welcome poor men and
strangers to your homely board, that with them Christ may be your guest. A
clergyman who engages in business, and who rises from poverty to wealth,
and from obscurity to a high position, avoid as you would the plague. For
"evil communications corrupt good manners."(8) You despise gold; he loves
it. You spurn wealth; he eagerly pursues it. You love silence, meekness,
privacy; he takes delight in talking and effrontery, in squares, and
streets, and apothecaries' shops. What unity of feeling can there be where
there is so wide a divergency of manners?

   A woman's foot should seldom, if ever, cross the threshold of your
home. To all who are Christ's virgins show the same regard or the same
disregard. Do not linger under the same roof with them, and do not rely on
your past continence. You cannot be holier than David or wiser than
Solomon. Always bear in mind that it was a woman who expelled the tiller of
paradise from his heritage.(1) In case you are sick one of the brethren may
attend you; your sister also or your mother or some woman whose faith is
approved with all. But if you have no persons so connected with you or so
marked out by chaste behaviour, the Church maintains many elderly women who
by their ministrations may oblige you and benefit themselves so that even
your sickness may bear fruit in the shape of almsdeeds. I know of cases
where the recovery of the body has but preluded the sickness of the soul.
There is danger for you in the service of one for whose face you constantly
watch. If in the course of your clerical duty you have to visit a widow or
a virgin, never enter the house alone. Let your companions be persons
association with whom will not disgrace you. If you take a reader with you
or an acolyte or a psalm-singer, let their character not their garb be
their adornment; let them use no tongs to curl their hair; rather let their
mien be an index of their chastity. You must not sit alone with a woman or
see one without witnesses. If she has anything confidential to disclose,
she is sure to have some nurse or housekeeper,(2) some virgin, some widow,
some married woman. She cannot be so friendless as to have none save you to
whom she can venture to confide her secret. Beware of all that gives
occasion for suspicion; and, to avoid scandal, shun every act that may give
colour to it. Frequent gifts of handkerchiefs and garters, of face-cloths
and dishes first tasted by the giver--to say nothing of notes full of fond
expressions--of such things as these a holy love knows nothing. Such
endearing and alluring expressions as 'my honey' and 'my darling,' 'you who
are all my charm and my delight the ridiculous courtesies of lovers and
their foolish doings, we blush for on the stage and abhor in men of the
world. How much more do we loathe them in monks and clergymen who adorn the
priesthood by their vows(3) while their vows are adorned by the priesthood.
I speak thus not because I dread such evils for you or for men of saintly
life, but because in all ranks and callings and among both men and women
there are found both good and bad and in condemning the bad I commend the
good.

   6. Shameful to say, idol-priests, play-actors, jockeys, and prostitutes
can inherit property: clergymen and monks alone lie under a legal
disability, a disability enacted not by persecutors but by Christian
emperors.(1) I do not complain of the law, but I grieve that we have
deserved a statute so harsh. Cauterizing is a good thing, no doubt; but how
is it that I have a wound which makes me need it? The law is strict and
far- seeing, yet even so rapacity goes on unchecked. By a fiction of
trusteeship we set the statute at defiance; and, as if imperial decrees
outweigh the mandates of Christ, we fear the laws and despise the Gospels.
If heir there must be, the mother has first claim upon her children, the
Church upon her flock--the members of which she has borne and reared and
nourished. Why do we thrust ourselves in between mother and children?

   It is the glory of a bishop to make provision for the wants of the
poor; but it is the shame of all priests to amass private fortunes. I who
was born (suppose) in a poor man's house, in a country cottage, and who
could scarcely get of common millet and household bread enough to fill an
empty stomach, am now come to disdain the finest wheat flour and honey. I
know the several kinds of fish by name. I can tell unerringly on what coast
a mussel has been picked. I can distinguish by the flavour the province
from which a bird comes. Dainty dishes delight me because their ingredients
are scarce and I end by finding pleasure in their ruinous cost.

   I hear also of servile attention shewn by some towards old men and
women when these are childless. They fetch the basin, beset the bed and
perform with their own hands the most revolting offices. They anxiously
await the advent of the doctor and with trembling lips they ask whether the
patient is better. If for a little while the old fellow shews signs of
returning vigour, they are in agonies. They pretend to be delighted, but
their covetous hearts undergo secret torture. For they are afraid that
their labours may go for nothing and compare an old man with a clinging to
life to the patriarch Methuselah. How great a reward might they have with
God if their hearts were not set on a temporal prize! With what great
exertions do they pursue an empty heritage! Less labour might have
purchased for them the pearl of Christ.

   7. Read the divine scriptures constantly; never, indeed, let the sacred
volume be out of your hand. Learn what you have to teach. "Hold fast the
faithful word as you have been taught that you may be able by sound
doctrine to exhort and convince the gainsayers. Continue thou in the things
that thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast
learned them;"(2) and "be ready always to give an answer to every man that
asketh you a reason of the hope and faith that are in you."(1) Do not let
your deeds belie your words; lest when you speak in church someone may
mentally reply "Why do you not practise what you profess? Here is a lover
of dainties turned censor! his stomach is full and he reads us a homily on
fasting. As well might a robber accuse others of covetousness." In a priest
of Christ mouth mind, and hand should be at one.

   Be obedient to your bishop and welcome him as the parent of your soul.
Sons love their fathers and slaves fear their masters. "If I be a father,"
He says, "where is mine honour? And if I am a master where is my fear?"(2)
in your case the bishop combines in himself many titles to your respect. He
is at once a monk, a prelate, and an uncle who has before now instructed
you in all holy things. This also I say that the bishops should know
themselves to be priests not lords. Let them render to the clergy the
honour which is their due that the clergy may offer to them the respect
which belongs to bishops. There is a witty saying of the orator Domitius
which is here to the point: "Why am I to recognize you as leader of the
Senate when you will not recognize my rights as a private member?"(3) We
should realize that a bishop and his presbyters are like Aaron and his
sons. As there is but one Lord and one Temple; so also should there be but
one ministry. Let us ever bear in mind the charge which the apostle Peter
gives to priests: "feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the
oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly as God would have you;(4)
not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's
heritage but being ensamples to the flock," and that gladly; that "when the
chief-shepherd shall appear ye may receive a crown of glory that fadeth not
away."(5) It is a bad custom which prevails in certain churches for
presbyters to be silent when bishops are present on the ground that they
would be jealous or impatient hearers. "If anything," writes the apostle
Paul, "be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his
peace. For ye may all prophesy one by one that all may learn and all may be
comforted; and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For
God is not the author of confusion but of peace."(6) "A wise son maketh a
glad father;"(7) and a bishop should rejoice in the discrimination which
has led him to choose such for the priests of Christ.

   8. When teaching in church seek to call forth not plaudits but groans.
Let the tears of your hearers be your glory. A presbyter's words ought to
be seasoned by his reading of scripture. Be not a declaimer or a ranter,
one who gabbles without rhyme or reason; but shew yourself skilled in the
deep things and versed in the mysteries of God. To mouth your words and by
your quickness of utterance astonish the unlettered crowd is a mark of
ignorance. Assurance often explains that of which it knows nothing; and
when it has convinced others imposes on itself. My teacher, Gregory of
Nazianzus, when I once asked him to explain Luke's phrase sa'bbaton
deutero'prwton, that is "the second-first Sabbath," playfully evaded my
request saying: "I will tell you about it in church, and there, when all
the people applaud me, you will be forced against your will to know what
you do not know at all. For, if you alone remain silent, every one will put
you down for a fool." There is nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to
deceive a common crowd or an uneducated congregation: such most admire what
they fail to understand. Hear Marcus Tullius, the subject of that noble
eulogy: "You would have been the first of orators but for Demosthenes: he
would have been the only one but for you." Hear what in his speech for
Quintus Gallius(1) he has to say about unskilled speakers and popular
applause and then you will not be the sport of such illusions. "What I am
telling you," said he, "is a recent experience of my own. One who has the
name of a poet and a man of culture has written a book entitled
Conversations of Poets and Philosophers. In this he represents Euripides as
conversing with Menander and Socrates with Epicurus--men whose lives we
know to be separated not by years but by centuries. Nevertheless he calls
forth limitless applause and endless acclamations. For the theatre contains
many who belong to the same school as he: like him they have never learned
letters."

   9. In dress avoid sombre colours as much as bright ones. Showiness and
slovenliness are alike to be shunned; for the one savours of vanity and the
other of pride. To go about without a linen scarf on is nothing: what is
praiseworthy is to be without money to buy one. It is disgraceful and
absurd to boast of having neither napkin nor handkerchief and let to carry
a well-filled purse.

   Some bestow a trifle on the poor to receive a larger sum themselves and
under the cloak of almsgiving do but seek for riches. Such are almshunters
rather than almsgivers. Their methods are those by which birds, beasts, and
fishes are taken. A morsel of bait is put on the hook--to land a married
lady's purse! The church is committed to the bishop; let him take heed whom
he appoints to be his almoner. It is better for me to have no money to give
away than shamelessly to beg what I mean to hoard. It is arrogance too to
wish to seem more liberal than he who is Christ's bishop. "All things are
not open to us all."(1) In the church one is the eye, another is the
tongue, another the hand, another the foot, others ears, belly, and so on.
Read Paul's epistle to the Corinthians and learn how the one body is made
up of different members.(2) The rude and simple brother must not suppose
himself a saint just because he knows nothing; and he who is educated and
eloquent must not measure his saintliness merely by his fluency. Of two
imperfect things holy rusticity is better than sinful eloquence.

   10. Many build churches nowadays; their walls and pillars of glowing
marble, their ceilings glittering with gold, their altars studded with
jewels. Yet to the choice of Christ's ministers no heed is paid, And let no
one allege against me the wealth of the temple in Judaea, its table, its
lamps, its censers, its dishes, its cups, its spoons,(3) and the rest of
its golden vessels. If these were approved by the Lord it was at a time
when the priests had to offer victims and when the blood of sheep was the
redemption of sins. They were figures typifying things still future and
were "written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are
come."(4) But now our Lord by His poverty has consecrated the poverty of
His house. Let us, therefore, think of His cross and count riches to be but
dirt. Why do we admire what Christ calls "the mammon of
unrighteousness"?(5) Why do we cherish and love what it is Peter's boast
not to possess?(6) Or if we insist on keeping to the letter and find the
mention of gold and wealth so pleasing, let us keep to everything else as
well as the gold. Let the bishops of Christ be bound to marry wives, who
must be virgins.(7) Let the best-intentioned priest be deprived of his
office if he bear a scar and be disfigured.(8) Let bodily leprosy be
counted worse than spots upon the soul. Let us be fruitful and multiply and
replenish the earth,(9) but let us slay no lamb and celebrate no mystic
passover, for where there is no temple,(10) the law forbids these acts. Let
us pitch tents in the seventh month(11) and noise abroad a solemn fast with
the sound of a horn.(12) But if we compare all these things as spiritual
with things which are spiritual;(1) and if we allow with Paul that "the Law
is spiritual"(2) and call to mind David's words: "open thou mine eyes that
I may behold wondrous things out of thy law;"(3) and if on these grounds we
interpret it as our Lord interprets it--He has explained the Sabbath in
this way:(4) then, rejecting the superstitions of the Jews, we must also
reject the gold; or, approving the gold, we must approve the Jews as well.
For we must either accept them with the gold or condemn them with it.

   11. Avoid entertaining men of the world, especially those whose honours
make them swell with pride. You are the priest of Christ--one poor and
crucified who lived on the bread of strangers. It is a disgrace to you if
the consul's lictors or soldiers keep watch before your door, and if the
Judge of the province has a better dinner with you than in his own palace.
If you plead as an excuse your wish to intercede for the unhappy and the
oppressed, I reply that a worldly judge will defer more to a clergyman who
is self- denying than to one who is rich; he will pay more regard to your
holiness than to your wealth. Or if he is a man who will not hear the
clergy on behalf of the distressed except over the bowl, I will readily
forego his aid and will appeal to Christ who can help more effectively and
speedily than any judge. Truly "it is better to trust in the Lord than to
put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put
confidence in princes."(5)

   Let your breath never smell of wine lest the philosopher's words be
said to you: "instead of offering me a kiss you are giving me a taste of
wine." Priests given to wine are both condemned by the apostle(6) and
forbidden by the old Law. Those who serve the altar, we are told, must
drink neither wine nor shechar.(7) Now every intoxicating drink is in
Hebrew called shechar whether it is made of corn or of the juice of apples,
whether you distil from the honeycomb a rude kind of mead or make a liquor
by squeezing dates or strain a thick syrup from a decoction of corn.
Whatever intoxicates and disturbs the balance of the mind avoid as you
would wine. I do not say that we are to condemn what is a creature of God.
The Lord Himself was called a "wine-bibber" and wine in moderation was
allowed to Timothy because of his weak stomach. I only require that
drinkers should observe that limit which their age, their health, or their
constitution requires. But if without drinking wine at all I am aglow with
youth and am inflamed by the heat of my blood and am of a strong and lusty
habit of body, I will readily forego the cup in which I cannot but suspect
poison. The Greeks have an excellent saying which will perhaps bear
translation,

   "Fat bellies have no sentiments refined."(1)

   12. Lay upon yourself only as much fasting as you can bear, and let
your fasts be pure, chaste, simple, moderate, and not superstitious. What
good is it to use no oil if you seek after the most troublesome and out-of-
the-way kinds of food, dried figs, pepper, nuts, dates, fine flour, honey,
pistachios? All the resources of gardening are strained to save us from
eating household bread; and to pursue dainties we turn our backs on the
kingdom of heaven. There are some, I am told, who reverse the laws of
nature and the race; for they neither eat bread nor drink water but imbibe
thin decoctions of crushed herbs and beet-juice--not from a cup but from a
shell. Shame on us that we have no blushes for such follies and that we
feel no disgust at such superstition! To crown all, in the midst of our
dainties we seek a reputation for abstinence. The strictest fast is bread
and water. But because it brings with it no glory and because we all of us
live on bread and water, it is reckoned no fast at all but an ordinary and
common matter.

   13. Do not angle for compliments, lest, while you win the popular
applause, you do despite to God. "If I yet pleased men," says the apostle,
"I should not be the servant of Christ."(2) He ceased to please men when he
became Christ's servant Christ's soldier marches on through good report and
evil report,(3) the one on the right hand and the other on the left. No
praise elates him, no reproaches crush him. He is not puffed up by riches,
nor does he shrink into himself because of poverty. Joy and sorrow he alike
despises. The sun does not burn him by day nor the moon by night.(4) Do not
pray at the corners of the streets,(5) lest the applause of men interrupt
the straight course of your prayers. Do not broaden your fringes and for
show wear phylacteries,(6) or, despite of conscience, wrap yourself in the
self-seeking of the Pharisee.(7) Would you know what mode of apparel the
Lord requires? Have prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude.(8) Let these
be the four quarters of your horizon, let them be a four-horse team to bear
you, Christ's charioteer, at full speed to your goal. No necklace can be
more precious than these; no gems can form a brighter galaxy. By them you
are decorated, you are girt about, you are protected on every side. They
are your defence as well as your glory; for every gem is turned into a
shield.

   14. Beware also of a blabbing tongue and of itching ears. Neither
detract from others nor listen to detractors. "Thou sittest," says the
psalmist, "and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own
mother's son. These things hast thou done and I kept silence; thou
thoughtest wickedly that I was such an one as thyself, but I will reprove
thee and set them(1) in order before thine eyes."(2) Keep your tongue from
cavilling and watch over your words. Know that in judging others you are
passing sentence on yourself and that you are yourself guilty of the faults
which you blame in them. It is no excuse to say: "if others tell me things
I cannot be rude to them." No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener.
An arrow never lodges in a stone: often it recoils upon the shooter of it.
Let the detractor learn from your unwillingness to listen not to be so
ready to detract. Solomon says:--"meddle not with them that are given to
detraction: for their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the
destruction of them both?"(3)--of the detractor, that is, and of the person
who lends an ear to his detraction.

   15. It is your duty to visit the sick, to know the homes and children
of ladies who are married, and to guard the secrets of noblemen. Make it
your object, therefore, to keep your tongue chaste as well as your eyes.
Never discuss a woman's figure nor let one house know what is going on in
another. Hippocrates,(4) before he will teach his pupils, makes them take
an oath and compels them to swear fealty to him. He binds them over to
silence, and prescribes for them their language, their gait, their dress,
their manners. How much more reason have we to whom the medicine of the
soul has been committed to love the houses of all Christians as our own
homes. Let them know us as comforters in sorrow rather than as guests in
time of mirth. That clergyman soon becomes an object of contempt who being
often asked out to dinner never refuses to go.

   16. Let us never seek for presents and rarely accept them when we are
asked to do so. For "it is more blessed to give than to receive."(1)
Somehow or other the very man who begs leave to offer you a gift holds you
the cheaper for your acceptance of it; while, if you refuse it, it is
wonderful how much more he will come to respect you. The preacher of
continence must not be a maker of marriages. Why does he who reads the
apostle's words "it remaineth that they that have wives be as though they
had none"(2)--why does he press a virgin to marry? Why does a priest, who
must be a monogamist,(3) urge a widow to marry again? How can the clergy be
managers and stewards of other men's households, when they are bidden to
disregard even their own interests? To wrest a thing from a friend is theft
but to cheat the Church is sacrilege. When you have received money to be
doled out to the poor, to be cautious or to hesitate while crowds are
starving is to be worse than a robber; and to subtract a portion for
yourself is to commit a crime of the deepest dye. I am tortured with hunger
and are you to judge what will satisfy my cravings? Either divide
immediately what you have received, or, if you are a timid almoner, send
the donor to distribute his own gifts. Your purse ought not to remain full
while I am in need. No one can look after what is mine better than I can.
He is the best almoner who keeps nothing for himself.

   17. You have compelled me, my dear Nepotian, in spite of the
castigation which my treatise on Virginity has bad to endure--the one which
I wrote for the saintly Eustochium at Rome:(4)--you have compelled me after
ten years have passed once more to open my mouth at Bethlehem and to expose
myself to the stabs of every tongue. For I could only escape from criticism
by writing nothing--a course made impossible by your request; and I knew
when I took up my pen that the shafts of all gainsayers would be launched
against me. I beg such to hold their peace and to desist from gainsaying:
for I have written to them not as to opponents but as to friends. I have
not inveighed against those who sin: I have but warned them to sin no more.
My judgment of myself has been as strict as my judgment of them. When I
have wished to remove the mote from my neighbour's eye, I have first east
out the beam in my own.(5) I have calumniated no one. Not a name has been
hinted at. My words have not been aimed at individuals and my criticism of
shortcomings has been quite general. If any one wishes to be angry with me
he will have first to own that he himself suits my description.

LETTER LIII: TO PAULINUS.

Jerome urges Paulinus, bishop of Nola, (for whom see Letter LVIII.) to make
a diligent study of the Scriptures and to this end reminds him of the zeal
for learning displayed not only by the wisest of the pagans but also by the
apostle Paul. Then going through the two Testaments in detail he describes
the contents of the several books and the lessons which may be learned from
them. He concludes with an appeal to Paulinus to divest himself wholly of
his earthly wealth and to devote himself altogether to God. Written in 394
A.D.

   1. Our brother Ambrose along with your little gifts has delivered to me
a most charming letter which, though it comes at the beginning of our
friendship, gives assurance of tried fidelity and of long continued
attachment. A true intimacy cemented by Christ Himself is not one which
depends upon material considerations, or upon the presence of the persons,
or upon an insincere and exaggerated flattery; but one such as ours,
wrought by a common fear of God and a joint study of the divine scriptures.

   We read in old tales that men traversed provinces, crossed seas, and
visited strange peoples, simply to see face to face persons whom they only
knew from books. Thus Pythagoras visited the prophets of Memphis; and
Plato, besides visiting Egypt and Archytas of Tarentum, most carefully
explored that part of the coast of Italy which was formerly called Great
Greece. In this way the influential Athenian master with whose lessons the
schools(1) of the Academy resounded became at once a pilgrim and a pupil
choosing modestly to learn what others had to teach rather than over
confidently to propound views of his own. Indeed his pursuit of learning--
which seemed to fly before him all the world over--finally led to his
capture by pirates who sold him into slavery to a cruel tyrant.(2) Thus he
became a prisoner, a bond-man, and a slave; yet, as he was always a
philosopher, he was greater still than the man who purchased him. Again we
read that certain noblemen journeyed from the most remote parts of Spain
and Gaul to visit Titus Livius,(3) and listen to his eloquence which flowed
like a fountain of milk. Thus the fame of an individual had more power to
draw men to Rome than the attractions of the city itself; and the age
displayed an unheard of and noteworthy portent in the shape of men who,
entering the great city, bestowed their attention not upon it but upon
something else. Apollonius(4) too was a traveller--the one I mean who is
called the sorcerer(1) by ordinary people and the philosopher by such as
follow Pythagoras. He entered Persia, traversed the Caucasus and made his
way through the Albanians, the Scythians, the Massagetae, and the richest
districts of India. At last, after crossing that wide river the Pison,(2)
he came to the Brahmans. There he saw Hiarcas(3) sitting upon his golden
throne and drinking from his Tantalus-fountain, and heard him instructing a
few disciples upon the nature, motions, and orbits of the heavenly bodies.
After this he travelled among the Elamites, the Babylonians, the Chaldeans,
the Medes, the Assyrians, the Parthians, the Syrians, the Phenicians, the
Arabians, and the Philistines.(4) Then returning to Alexandria he made his
way to Ethiopia to see the gymnosophists and the famous table of the sun
spread in the sands of the desert.(5) Everywhere he found something to
learn, and as he was always going to new places, he became constantly wiser
and better. Philostratus has written the story of his life at length in
eight books.

   2. But why should I confine my allusions to the men of this world, when
the Apostle Paul, the chosen vessel(6) the doctor(7) of the Gentiles, who
could boldly say: "Do ye seek a proof of Christ speaking m me?"(8) knowing
that he really had within him that greatest of guests--when even he after
visiting Damascus and Arabia "went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode
with him fifteen days."(9) For he who was to be a preacher to the Gentiles
had to be instructed in the mystical numbers seven and eight. And again
fourteen years after he took Barnabas and Titus and communicated his gospel
to the apostles lest by any means he should have run or had run in
vain.(10) Spoken words possess an indefinable hidden power, and teaching
that passed directly from the mouth of the speaker into the ears of the
disciples is more impressive than any other. When the speech of Demosthenes
against AEschines was recited before the latter during his exile at Rhodes,
amid all the admiration and applause he sighed "if you could but have heard
the brute deliver his own periods!(11)

   3. I do not adduce these instances because I have anything in me from
which you either can or will learn a lesson, but to show you that your zeal
and eagerness to learn-- even though you cannot rely on help from me--are
in themselves worthy of praise. A mind willing to learn deserves
commendation even when it has no teacher. What is of importance to me is
not what you find but what you seek to find. Wax is soft and easy to mould
even where the hands of craftsman and modeller are wanting to work it. It
is already potentially all that it can be made. The apostle Paul learned
the Law of Moses and the prophets at the feet of Gamaliel and was glad that
he had done so, for armed with this spiritual armour, he was able to say
boldly "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God
to the pulling down of strongholds;" armed with these we war "casting down
imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the
obedience of Christ; and being in a readiness to revenge all
disobedience."(1) He writes to Timothy who had been trained in the holy
writings from a child exhorting him to study them diligently(2) and not to
neglect the gift which was given him with the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery.(3) To Titus he gives commandment that among a bishop's other
virtues (which he briefly describes) he should be careful to seek a
knowledge of the scriptures: A bishop, he says, must hold fast "the
faithful word as he hath been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine
both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers."(4) In fact want of
education in a clergyman(5) prevents him from doing good to any one but
himself and much as the virtue of his life may build up Christ's church, he
does it an injury as great by failing to resist those who are trying to
pull it down. The prophet Haggai says--or rather the Lord says it by the
mouth of Haggai--"Ask now the priests concerning the law."(6) For such is
the important function of the priesthood to give answers to those who
question them concerning the law. And in Deuteronomy we read "Ask thy
father and he will shew thee; thy elders and they will tell thee."(7) Also
in the one hundred and nineteenth psalm "thy statutes have been my songs in
the house of my pilgrimage." David too, in the description of the righteous
man whom he compares to the tree of life in paradise, amongst his other
excellences speaks of this, "His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in
his law doth he meditate day and night."(9) In the close of his most solemn
vision Daniel declares that "the righteous shall shine as the stars; and
the wise, that is the learned, as the firmament."(10) You can see,
therefore, how great is the difference between righteous ignorance and
instructed righteousness. Those who have the first are compared with the
stars, those who have the second with the heavens. Yet, according to the
exact sense of the Hebrew, both statements may be understood of the
learned, for it is to be read in this way:--"They that be wise shall shine
as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to
righteousness as the stars forever and ever." Why is the apostle Paul
called a chosen vessel?(1) Assuredly because he is a repertory of the Law
and of the holy scriptures. The learned teaching of our Lord strikes the
Pharisees dumb with amazement, and they are filled with astonishment to
find that Peter and John know the Law although they have not learned
letters. For to these the Holy Ghost immediately suggested what comes to
others by daily study and meditation; and, as it is written,(2) they were
"taught of God." The Saviour had only accomplished his twelfth year when
the scene in the temple took place;(3) but when he interrogated the elders
concerning the Law His wise questions conveyed rather than sought
information.

   4. But perhaps we ought to call Peter and John ignorant, both of whom
could say of themselves, "though I be rude in speech, yet not in
knowledge."(4) Was John a mere fisherman, rude and untaught? If so, whence
did he get the words "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with
God and the word was God."(5) Logos in Greek has many meanings. It
signifies word and reason and reckoning and the cause of individual things
by which those which are subsist. All of which things we rightly predicate
of Christ. This truth Plato with all his learning did not know, of this
Demosthenes with all his eloquence was ignorant. "I will destroy," it is
said, "the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent."(6) The true wisdom must destroy the false, and, although
the foolishness of preaching(7) is inseparable from the Cross, Paul speaks
"wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor
of the princes of this world that come to nought," but he speaks "the
wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained
before the world."(8) God's wisdom is Christ, for Christ, we are told, is
"the power of God and the wisdom of God."(9) He is the wisdom which is
hidden in a mystery, of which also we read in the heading of the ninth
psalm "for the hidden things of the son."(10) In Him are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He also who was hidden in a mystery is
the same that was foreordained before the world. Now it was in the Law and
in the Prophets that he was foreordained and prefigured. For this reason
too the prophets were called seers,(1) because they saw Him whom others did
not see. Abraham saw His day and was glad.(2) The heavens which were sealed
to a rebellious people were opened to Ezekiel. "Open thou mine eyes," saith
David, "that I may behold wonderful things out of thy Law."(3) For "the law
is spiritual"(4) and a revelation is needed to enable us to comprehend it
and, when God uncovers His face, to behold His glory.

   5. In the apocalypse a book is shewn sealed with seven seals,(5) which
if you deliver to one that is learned saying, Read this, he will answer
you, I cannot, for it is sealed.(6) How many there are to-day who fancy
themselves learned, yet the scriptures are a sealed book to them, and one
which they cannot open save through Him who has the key of David, "he that
openeth and no man shutteth; and shutteth and no man openeth."(7) In the
Acts of the Apostles the holy eunuch (or rather "man" for so the scripture
calls him(8)) when reading Isaiah he is asked by Philip "Understandest thou
what thou readest?", makes answer:--"How can I except some man should guide
me?"(9) To digress for a moment to myself, I am neither holier nor more
diligent than this eunuch, who came from Ethiopia, that is from the ends of
the world, to the Temple leaving behind him a queen's palace, and was so
great a lover of the Law and of divine knowledge that he read the holy
scriptures even in his chariot. Yet although he had the book in his hand
and took into his mind the words of the Lord, nay even had them on his
tongue and uttered them with his lips, he still knew not Him, whom--not
knowing-- he worshipped in the book. Then Philip came and shewed him Jesus,
who was concealed beneath the letter. Wondrous excellence of the teacher!
In the same hour the eunuch believed and was baptized; he became one of the
faithful and a saint. He was no longer a pupil but a master; and he found
more in the church's font there in the wilderness than he had ever done in
the gilded temple of the synagogue.

   6. These instances have been just touched upon by me (the limits of a
letter forbid a more discursive treatment of them) to convince you that in
the holy scriptures you can make no progress unless you have a guide to
shew you the way. I say nothing of the knowledge of grammarians,
rhetoricians, philosophers, geometers, logicians, musicians, astronomers,
astrologers, physicians, whose several kinds of skill are most useful to
mankind, and may be ranged under the three heads of teaching, method, and
proficiency. I will pass to the less important crafts which require manual
dexterity more than mental ability. Husbandmen, masons, carpenters, workers
in wood and metal, wool-dressers and fullers, as well as those artisans who
make furniture and cheap utensils, cannot attain the ends they seek without
instruction from qualified persons.As Horace says(1)

   "Doctors alone profess the healing art
   And none but joiners ever try to join."

   7. The art of interpreting the scriptures is the only one of which all
men everywhere claim to be masters. To quote Horace again

   "Taught or untaught we all write poetry."(2)

The chatty old woman, the doting old man, and the wordy sophist, one and
all take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces and teach them before
they have learned them. Some with brows knit and bombastic words, balanced
one against the other philosophize concerning the sacred writings among
weak women. Others--I blush to say it--learn of women what they are to
teach men; and as if even this were not enough, they boldly explain to
others what they themselves by no means understand. I say nothing of
persons who, like myself have been familiar with secular literature before
they have come to the study of the holy scriptures. Such men when they
charm the popular ear by the finish of their style suppose every word they
say to be a law of God. They do not deign to notice what Prophets and
apostles have intended but they adapt conflicting passages to suit their
own meaning, as if it were a grand way of teaching--and not rather the
faultiest of all--to misrepresent a writer's views and to force the
scriptures reluctantly to do their will. They forget that we have read
centos from Homer and Virgil; but we never think of calling the Christless
Maro(3) a Christian because of his lines:--

   Now comes the Virgin back and Saturn's reign,
   Now from high heaven comes a Child newborn.(4)

Another line might be addressed by the Father to the Son:--

   Hail, only Son, my Might and Majesty.(5)

And yet another might follow the Saviour's words on the cross:--

   Such words he spake and there transfixed remained.(6)

But all this is puerile. and resembles the sleight-of-hand of a mountebank.
It is idle to try to teach what you do not know, and--if I may speak with
some warmth--is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance.

   8. Genesis, we shall be told, needs no explanation; its topics are too
simple--the birth of the world, the origin of the human race,(1) the
division of the earth,(2) the confusion of tongues,(3) and the descent of
the Hebrews into Egypt!(4) Exodus, no doubt, is equally plain, containing
as it does merely an account of the ten plagues,(5) the decalogue,(6) and
sundry mysterious and divine precepts! The meaning of Leviticus is of
course self- evident, although every sacrifice that it describes, nay more
every word that it contains, the description of Aaron's vestments,(7) and
all the regulations connected with the Levites are symbols of things
heavenly! The book of Numbers too--are not its very figures,(8) and
Balaam's prophecy,(9) and the forty-two camping places in the wilderness
(10) so many mysteries? Deuteronomy also, that is the second law or the
foreshadowing of the law of the gospel,--does it not, while exhibiting
things known before, put old truths in a new light? So far the 'five words'
of the Pentateuch, with which the apostle boasts his wish to speak in the
Church.(11) Then, as for Job,(12) that pattern of patience, what mysteries
are there not contained in his discourses? Commencing in prose the book
soon glides into verse and at the end once more reverts to prose. By the
way in which it lays down propositions, assumes postulates, adduces proofs,
and draws inferences, it illustrates all the laws of logic. Single words
occurring in the book are full of meaning. To say nothing of other topics,
it prophesies the resurrection of men's bodies at once with more clearness
and with more caution than any one has yet shewn. "I know," Job says, "that
my redeemer liveth, and that at the last day I shall rise again from the
earth; and I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh shall I
see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not
another. This my hope is stored up in my own bosom."(13) I will pass on to
Jesus the son of Nave(14)--a type of the Lord in name as well as in deed--
who crossed over Jordan, subdued hostile kingdoms, divided the land among
the conquering people and who, in every city, village, mountain, river,
hill-torrent, and boundary which he dealt with, marked out the spiritual
realms of the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, of the church.(1) In the book of
Judges every one of the popular leaders is a type. Ruth the Moabitess
fulfils the prophecy of Isaiah:--"Send thou a lamb, O Lord, as ruler of the
land from the rock of the wilderness to the mount of the daughter of
Zion."(2) Under the figures of Eli's death and the slaying of Saul Samuel
shews the abolition of the old law. Again in Zadok and in David he bears
witness to the mysteries of the new priesthood and of the new royalty. The
third and fourth books of Kings called in Hebrew Malachim give the history
of the kingdom of Judah from Solomon to Jeconiah,(3) and of that of Israel
from Jeroboam the son of Nebat to Hoshea who was carried away into Assyria.
If you merely regard the narrative, the words are simple enough, but if you
look beneath the surface at the hidden meaning of it, you find a
description of the small numbers of the church and of the wars which the
heretics wage against it. The twelve prophets whose writings are compressed
within the narrow limits of a single volume,(4) have typical meanings far
different from their literal ones Hosea speaks many times of Ephraim, of
Samaria, of Joseph, of Jezreel, of a wife of whoredoms and of children of
whoredoms,(5) of an adulteress shut up within the chamber of her husband,
sitting for a long time in widowhood and in the garb of mourning, awaiting
the time when her husband will return to her.(6) Joel the son of Pethuel
describes the land of the twelve tribes as spoiled and devastated by the
palmerworm the canker-worm, the locust, and the blight,(7) and predicts
that after the overthrow of the former people the Holy Spirit shall be
poured out upon God's servants and handmaids;(8) the same spirit, that is,
which was to be poured out in the upper chamber at Zion upon the one
hundred and twenty believers.(9) These believers rising by gradual and
regular gradations from one to fifteen form the steps to which there is a
mystical allusion in the "psalms of degrees."(10) Amos, although he is only
"an herdman" from the country, "a gatherer of sycomore fruit,"(11) cannot
be explained in a few words. For who can adequately speak of the three
transgressions and the four of Damascus, of Gaza, of Tyre, of Idumaea, of
Moab, of the children of Ammon, and in the seventh and eighth place of
Judah and of Israel? He speaks to the fat kine that are in the mountain of
Samaria,(1) and bears witness that the great house and the little house
shall fall.(2) He sees now the maker of the grasshopper,(2) now the Lord,
standing upon a wall(4) daubed (5) or made of adamant,(6) now a basket of
apples(7) that brings doom to the transgressors, and now a famine upon the
earth "not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the
words of the Lord."(8) Obadiah, whose name means the servant of God,
thunders against Edom red with blood and against the creature born of
earth.(9) He smites him with the spear of the spirit because of his
continual rivalry with his brother Jacob. Jonah, fairest of doves, whose
shipwreck shews in a figure the passion of the Lord, recalls the world to
penitence, and while he preaches to Nineveh, announces salvation to all the
heathen. Micah the Morasthite a joint heir with Christ(10) announces the
spoiling of the daughter of the robber and lays siege against her, because
she has smitten the jawbone of the judge of Israel.(11) Nahum, the consoler
of the world, rebukes "the bloody city"(12) and when it is overthrown
cries: -"Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good
tidings."(13) Habakkuk, like a strong and unyielding wrestler,(14) stands
upon his watch and sets his foot upon the tower(15) that he may contemplate
Christ upon the cross and say "His glory covered the heavens and the earth
was full of his praise. And his brightness was as the light; he had horns
coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power."(16)
Zephaniah, that is the bodyguard and knower of the secrets of the Lord,(17)
hears "a cry from the fishgate, and an howling from the second, and a great
crashing from the hills."(18) He proclaims "howling to the inhabitants of
the mortar;(19) for all the people of Canaan are undone; all they that were
laden with silver are cut off."(20) Haggai, that is he who is glad or
joyful, who has sown in tears to reap in joy,(21) is occupied with the
rebuilding of the temple. He represents the Lord (the Father, that is) as
saying "Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and
the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations and
he who is desired(1) of all nations shall come'(2) Zechariah, he that is
mindful of his Lord,(3) gives us many prophecies. He sees Jesus,(4)
"clothed with filthy garments,"(5) a stone with seven eyes,(6) a candle-
stick all of gold with lamps as many as the eyes, and two olivetrees on the
right side of the bowl(7) and on the left. After he has described the
horses, red, black, white, and grisled,(8) and the cutting off of the
chariot from Ephraim and of the horse from Jerusalem(9) he goes on to
prophesy and predict a king who shall be a poor man and who shall sit "upon
a colt the foal of an ass."(10) Malachi, the last of all the prophets,
speaks openly of the rejection of Israel and the calling of the nations. "I
have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an
offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun even unto the going
down of the same, my name is great among the Gentiles: and in every place
incense(11) is offered unto my name, and a pure offering."(12) As for
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, who can fully understand or
adequately explain them? The first of them seems to compose not a prophecy
but a gospel. The second speaks of a rod of an almond tree(13) and of a
seething pot with its face toward the north,(14) and of a leopard which has
changed its spots.(15) He also goes four times through the alphabet in
different metres.(16) The beginning and ending of Ezekiel, the third of the
four, are involved in so great obscurity that like the commencement of
Genesis they are not studied by the Hebrews until they are thirty years
old. Daniel, the fourth and last of the four prophets, having knowledge of
the times and being interested in the whole world, in clear language
proclaims the stone cut out of the mountain without hands that overthrows
all kingdoms.(17) David, who is our Simonides, Pindar, and Alcaeus, our
Horace, our Catullus, and our Serenus all in one, sings of Christ to his
lyre; and on a psaltery with ten strings calls him from the lower world to
rise again. Solomon, a lover of peace(18) and of the Lord, corrects morals,
teaches nature, unites Christ and the church, and sings a sweet marriage
song(19) to celebrate that holy bridal. Esther, a type of the church, frees
her people from danger and, after having slain Haman whose name means
iniquity, hands down to posterity a memorable day and a great feast.(1) The
book of things omitted' or epitome of the old dispensation(3) is of such
importance and value that without it any one who should claim to himself a
knowledge of the scriptures would make himself a laughing stock in his own
eyes. Every name used in it, nay even the conjunction of the words, serves
to throw light on narratives passed over in the books of Kings and upon
questions suggested by the gospel. Ezra and Nehemiah, that is the Lord's
helper and His consoler, are united in a single book. They restore the
Temple and build up the walls of the city. In their pages we see the throng
of the Israelites returning to their native land, we read of priests and
Levites, of Israel proper and of proselytes; and we are even told the
several families to which the task of building the walls and towers was
assigned. These references convey one meaning upon the surface, but another
below it.

   9. [In Migne, 8.] You see how, carried away by my love of the
scriptures, I have exceeded the limits of a letter vet have not fully
accomplished my object. We have heard only what it is that we ought to know
and to desire, so that we too may be able to say with the psalmist:--"My
soul breaketh out for the very fervent desire that it hath alway unto thy
judgments."(4) But the saying of Socrates about himself--"this only I know
that I know nothing"(5)--is fulfilled in our case also. The New Testament I
will briefly deal with. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the Lord's team of
four,(6) the true cherubim or store of knowledge.(7) With them the whole
body is full of eyes,(8) they glitter as sparks,(9) they run and return
like lightning,(10) their feet are straight feet(11) and lifted up, their
backs also are winged, ready to fly in all directions. They hold together
each by each and are interwoven one with another:(12) like wheels within
wheels they roll along(13) and go whithersoever the breath of the Holy
Spirit wafts them.(14) The apostle Paul writes to seven churches(15) (for
the eighth epistle-- that to the Hebrews--is not generally counted in with
the other). He instructs

   Timothy and Titus; he intercedes with Philemon for his runaway
slave.(16) Of him I think it better to say nothing than to write
inadequately. The Acts of the Apostles seem to relate a mere unvarnished
narrative descriptive of the infancy of the newly born church but when once
we realize that their author is Luke the physician whose praise is in the
gospel,(1) we shall see that all his words are medicine for the sick soul.
The apostles James, Peter, John, and Jude, have published seven epistles at
once spiritual and to the point, short and long, short that is in words but
lengthy in substance so that there are few indeed who do not find
themselves in the dark when they read them. The apocalypse of John has as
many mysteries as words. In saying this I have said less than the book
deserves. All praise of it is inadequate; manifold meanings lie hid in its
every word.

   10. [In Migne, 9.] I beg of you, my dear brother, to live among these
books, to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else.
Does not such a life seem to you a foretaste of heaven here on earth? Let
not the simplicity of the scripture or the poorness of its vocabulary
offend you; for these are due either to the faults of translators or else
to deliberate purpose: for in this way it is better fitted for the
instruction of an unlettered congregation as the educated person can take
one meaning and the uneducated another from one and the same sentence. I am
not so dull or so forward as to profess that I myself know it, or that I
can pluck upon the earth the fruit which has its root in heaven, but I
confess that I should like to do so. I put myself before the man who sits
idle and, while I lay no claim to be a master, I readily pledge myself to
be a fellow-student. "Every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh
findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."(2) Let us learn upon
earth that knowledge which will continue with us in heaven.

   11. [In Migne, 10.] I will receive you with open hands and--if I may
boast and speak foolishly like Hermagoras(3)--I will strive to learn with
you whatever you desire to study. Eusebius who is here regards you with the
affection of a brother; he(4) has made your letter twice as precious by
telling me of your sincerity of character, your contempt for the world,
your constancy in friendship, and your love to Christ. The letter bears on
its face (without any aid from him) your prudence and the charm of your
style. Make haste then, I beseech you, and cut instead of loosing the
hawser which prevents your vessel from moving in the sea. The man who sells
his goods because he despises them and means to renounce the world can have
no desire to sell them dear. Count as money gained the sum that you must
expend upon your outfit. There is an old saying that a miser lacks as much
what he has as what he has not. The believer has a whole world of wealth;
the unbeliever has not a single farthing. Let us always live "as having
nothing and yet possessing all things."(1) Food and raiment, these are the
Christian's wealth.(2) If your property is in your own power,(3) sell it:
if not, cast it from you. "If any man ... will take away thy coat, let him
have the cloke also."(4) You are all for delay, you wish to defer action:
unless--so you argue--unless I sell my goods piecemeal and with caution,
Christ will be at a loss to feed his poor. Nay, he who has offered himself
to God, has given Him everything once for all. The apostles did but forsake
ships and nets.(5) The widow cast but two brass coins into the treasury(6)
and yet she shall be preferred before Croesus(7) with all his wealth. He
readily despises all things who reflects always that he must die.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF II/VI, Schaff and Wace). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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