Against Jovinian

«I satisfy those who have been invited, not that I may run to a glorious name, but that I may live purged of vain rumor. I beseech the field, the new plantings, the arbors of tenderness, snatched from the whirlpools of vices, an audience fortified by ranks. We know the Church, by hope, faith, charity, to be inaccessible, impregnable. In her there is none immature, all are teachable: none can burst in by assault, or elude by craft.»

I ask, what are these monstrosities of words? What glory of description? Would you not think him either dreaming with fever, or seized by a fit of frenzy, needing to be bound in Hippocrates' chains? As often as I read him, wherever my spirit fails, there is the punctuation. Everything begins, everything hangs upon something else: you cannot tell what belongs to what; and except for the testimonies of Scripture, which he did not dare to alter with that most charming flower of his eloquence, the rest of his speech suits any subject matter, because it suits none. This gave me some suspicion of his intent, that he wishes so to praise marriage as to detract from virginity. For when lesser things are made equal to greater, the comparison of the inferior is an injury to the superior.

Now we, following neither the dogmas of Marcion and Manichaeus, do not detract from marriage; nor, deceived by the error of Tatian, the chief of the Encratites, do we think every union filthy; he who condemns and rejects not only marriage, but also the foods which God created for use. We know that in a great house there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; and that upon the foundation of Christ, which Paul the architect laid, some build gold, silver, precious stones; others, on the contrary, hay, wood, stubble. We are not ignorant that "marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled". We read the first sentence of God: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth"; but we receive marriage in such a way that we prefer virginity, which is born from marriage. Will silver cease to be silver, if gold is more precious than silver? Or is it an insult to the tree and the crop, if the fruits are preferred to the root and leaves, the stalk and the ears?

As fruits come from the tree, grain from the stalk, so virginity comes from marriage. The hundredfold and the sixtyfold and the thirtyfold fruit, though born of one earth and one seed, yet differ greatly in number. The thirty is referred to marriage. For the very joining of the fingers, as if embracing with a soft kiss, and making a covenant, depicts husband and wife. The sixty, indeed, refers to widows, because they are placed in narrowness and tribulation. Whence they are pressed down by the upper finger; and the greater the difficulty of one who has once tasted the allurements of pleasure to abstain, the greater is the reward. But the hundredfold number (attend carefully, I beg, reader) is transferred from the left to the right, and with the same fingers indeed, but not in the same manner of hand, by which on the left the married and widows are signified, forming a circle, it expresses the crown of virginity. These things I have said more out of impatience than according to the order of the discussion.

For while I am still scarcely leaving the harbor, and hoisting sail with the ropes, a sudden tide of speech has swept me into the middle sea of questions. Whence I will restrain my course, and for a while draw in my sails; nor will I indulge the blade already eager to strike now on behalf of virginity. The ballista, the more it is drawn back, the more forcefully it shoots. There is no loss in delay, where victory is made more certain by the delay. I will briefly set forth the opinions of my adversary, and drag forth, as it were serpents from their pits, from his dark books, nor will I allow the venomous head to hide beneath the coils of its spotted body. Let what is harmful be laid open, that it may be crushed when it has been laid open. He says that virgins, widows, and married women, who have once been washed in Christ, if they do not differ in other works, are of the same merit.

He strives to prove that those who have been reborn in baptism with full faith cannot be overthrown by the devil. He has set forth a third point, that between abstinence from foods and the partaking of them with thanksgiving there is no difference. The fourth and last, that there is one reward in the kingdom of heaven for all who have kept their baptism.

These are the hissings of the ancient serpent, by these counsels the dragon drove man from paradise. For by preferring satiety to fasting, he promised that they would be immortal, as though they could never fall; and while promising them a divinity equal to God's, he drove them out of paradise, so that they who, naked and unencumbered, and without any stain, virgins, enjoyed the company of the Lord, being cast down into the valley of tears, were clothed with garments sewn together and made of skins. But lest I detain the reader too long, I will follow the traces of the division already set forth, and against each of his propositions I will strive above all by the testimonies of Scripture: lest he complain querulously that he was overcome by eloquence rather than by truth. And if I shall accomplish this, and overwhelm him with the cloud of both Testaments, I will take up examples also from secular literature, to which he himself appeals.

I will also show that among philosophers and distinguished men in public life, virtues are wont to be preferred to pleasures by all—that is, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristides, are preferred to Aristippus, Epicurus, and Alcibiades. I beg you, virgins and continent persons of both sexes, husbands too and those twice married, to aid my endeavors with your prayers. Jovinian is a common enemy to all. For he who asserts equal merits for all, does injury both to virginity, by comparing it to marriage, and to marriage itself, by declaring it lawful in the same way as second and third marriages. But he is also an adversary to those twice and thrice married, placing there, among former fornicators and the most lustful men after repentance, those who have doubled and tripled their marriages: except that in this the twice and thrice married ought not to grieve, because the same fornicator, once repentant, is even made equal to virgins in the kingdom of heaven.

I will therefore set forth in plainer words, having some coherence, his arguments and examples concerning marriage, and I will arrange them all in the same order in which they were spoken by him. Nor let it trouble the reader if he is compelled to read his nausea and vomit. He will more gladly drink Christ's antidote, when the devil's poisons have gone before. Listen patiently, virgins; listen, I beg, to this most voluptuous preacher, or rather, pass by with closed ear, as though past the songs and fables of the sirens. Bear your injuries for a little while; imagine yourselves, crucified with Christ, hearing the blasphemies of the Pharisees.

"The first sentence of God," he says, "is: 'For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh'". And lest we should perhaps say this was written in the Old Testament, he asserts that the same thing is confirmed by the Lord also in the Gospel: "What God hath joined, let not man put asunder"; and immediately he adds, "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth"; and he recounts in order that Seth, Enos, Cainan, Malaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, all had wives, and by God's own sentence begot children (as if the order of generation and the history of the human condition could have been narrated without spouses and children): "This," he says, "is Enoch, who walked with God, and was taken up into heaven."

"This is Noah, who, though there were doubtless many virgins by reason of age, alone with his sons and their wives was saved from the shipwrecked world. Again after the flood, as if by a second beginning of the human race, pairs of men and wives are joined, and the blessing of generation is renewed entirely: 'Increase and multiply, and fill the earth'. Moreover, even the license of eating meats is relaxed: 'And every thing that moveth shall be food for you: as the green herbs, I have given you all things'. He runs on to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of whom the first was thrice married, the second once married, the third had four wives: Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah; and he asserts that Abraham, for the merit of his faith, received the blessing in the begetting of a son. That Sarah, in the type of the Church, whose womanly powers had failed, exchanged the curse of barrenness for the blessing of childbirth.

That Rebecca went, as it were, to inquire of the Lord like a prophetess, and heard from him, 'Two nations and two peoples are in thy womb'. That Jacob served for a wife: and when Rachel, thinking it was the husband's part to give children, said, 'Give me children: otherwise I shall die', he answered, 'Am I in the place of God, who hath withheld from thee'? To such a degree," he says, "did he know that the fruit of marriage belongs to the Lord, not to the husband. That Joseph, a holy and most chaste man, and all the patriarchs had wives, whom God blesses equally through Moses. He also sets forth Judah and Tamar; and touches on the slaying of Onan by the Lord, because, begrudging his brother seed, he was destroying the work of marriage. He sets forth Moses, and the leprosy of Miriam, who, speaking against her brother on account of his wife, was immediately struck by God's vengeance. He praises Samson, and extols the married Nazirite with wondrous praises.

He also recounts Deborah and Barak; that, without the goods of virginity, they overcame Sisera and Jabin and the iron chariots. He brings forward Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, and praises the hand armed with a tent-peg. Between Jephthah the father and his virgin daughter, who was offered to the Lord, he says there was no difference; rather, he prefers the father's faith to hers who was slain lamenting. He comes to Samuel, another Nazirite of the Lord, who was nourished from infancy in the tabernacle, and clothed in the ephod bad, which is interpreted linen garments; and he says that he begot children, nor was his priestly chastity diminished by the embrace of a wife. He places Boaz with his Ruth on the threshing floor, and from thence brings forth Jesse and David.

David himself too, he says, sought the marriage of the king's daughter with two hundred foreskins, even at peril of his life." What shall I say of Solomon, whom, placing him in the catalogue of husbands, he asserts to be an image of the Saviour? And of him he wishes it to be written: God, give thy judgment to the king, and thy justice to the king's son. And, There shall be given to him of the gold of Arabia, and they shall pray for him always. And forthwith he leaps over to Elijah and Elisha, and relates, as though a great mystery, that the spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha; and why he has said this, he is silent—unless perchance he thinks that Elijah too and Elisha had wives. He passes on to Hezekiah: and while he lingers in his praises, I marvel that he forgot to say: Henceforth I shall beget sons.

Josiah, a most just man, under whom the book of Deuteronomy was found in the Temple, he relates to have been instructed by his wife Huldah, wife of Shallum. Daniel too, and the three boys, he places among husbands. And leaping suddenly to the Gospel, he sets down Zachariah, and Elizabeth, Peter, and his mother-in-law, and the rest of the Apostles. And accordingly he adds, saying: “But if they wish to take up a vain defence, and pretend that the young world needed increase, let them hear Paul saying: I would have the younger widows marry, bear children. And, Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled. And, A woman is bound to her husband as long as her husband lives. But if her husband be dead, let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord. And, Adam was not seduced: but the woman being seduced, was in the transgression. Yet she shall be saved through bearing of children, if she continue in faith and love, and sanctification with sobriety.

Surely here that Apostolic saying ceases, And they that have wives, be as though they had none: unless perhaps you will say that he wishes them to marry for this reason, that some have already turned back after Satan—as though none of the virgins ever falls, and their fall is not the greater. From which it is clear that you follow the doctrine of the Manichees, who forbid marriage, and the eating of foods which God created to be used, having their conscience seared.” And after many things, which it is now idle to rehearse, he betakes himself as it were to a rhetorical commonplace, and makes an apostrophe to the virgin, saying: “I do you no wrong, virgin: you have chosen chastity because of the present necessity: it has pleased you to be holy in body and spirit: be not proud; you are a member of the same Church of which marriage also is a member.”

Perhaps I have been excessive in setting forth his propositions, and have caused weariness to the reader; but I judged it useful to array all his contrivances, as it were a battle-line marshalled against me, and to gather the whole hostile army with its squadrons and leaders, lest after the first victory other battles should thereafter spring up for me.

Therefore I shall not fight man by man, nor be content with scattered skirmishes against a few: the whole column must be contended with, and the disordered wedges of the enemy, fighting after the manner of brigands, must be repelled by a marshalled and ordered battle-line. I shall set in the front rank the Apostle Paul, and, as it were the strongest general, I shall arm him with his own weapons, that is, with his own sayings. For when the Corinthians inquired of him concerning this question, the teacher of the Gentiles and master of the Church answered most fully. Whatever he determined, let us reckon this to be the law of Christ speaking in him. And at the same time, let not the reader's silent thought, when we begin to resolve one by one the things that have been proposed, always hold itself in reserve for the Apostle, and, in eagerness for the strongest arguments, neglecting the earlier points, hasten to the last.

Among other things, the Corinthians had asked by letter whether, after the faith of Christ, they ought to be celibate, and for the sake of continence put away the wives they had, or whether, if they were virgins when they believed, they should enter marriage? And when, of two pagans, one had believed in Christ, whether the one believing should leave the one not believing? And if wives were to be taken, whether he would bid them take only Christian women, or pagan women too? Let us see, then, what Paul wrote back to these questions: Now concerning the things whereof you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render the debt to his wife, and the wife also in like manner to the husband. The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband.

And in like manner the husband also hath not power over his own body, but the wife. Defraud not one another, except perhaps by consent, for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer. And return together again, lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency. But I speak this by indulgence, not by commandment. For I would that all men were even as myself; but every one hath his proper gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they so continue, even as I. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to be burnt. Let us return to the head of the testimony: It is good, he says, for a man not to touch a woman. If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is evil to touch her: for nothing is contrary to the good, except the evil.

But if it is evil, and is pardoned, it is therefore conceded lest something worse arise from the evil. But what sort of good is that which is granted on the condition of something worse? For he would never have subjoined, let every man have his own wife, had he not first said, but because of fornication. Take away fornication, and he will not say, let every man have his own wife. It is as if someone should lay it down: It is good to feed on wheaten bread, and to eat the purest fine flour. Yet lest anyone, driven by hunger, should eat cow dung, I grant him to feed on barley also. Shall wheat therefore not keep its own purity, because barley is preferred to dung? That is naturally good which admits no comparison with evil, which is not overshadowed by the preferring of something else. And at the same time the Apostle's prudence must be noted.

He did not say, it is good not to have a wife: but, it is good not to touch a woman: as though there were danger even in the touch: as though he who has touched her does not escape her who seizes the precious souls of men, who makes the hearts of young men fly away: Shall a man bind fire in his bosom, and his garments not burn? Or shall he walk upon hot coals, and his feet not be burnt? Just as he who touches fire is at once burned, so the touch of man and woman feels its own nature, and perceives the difference of sex. The tales of the pagans too relate that Mithras and Erichthonius were begotten either from stone or from earth by the mere heat of lust. Whence also our Joseph, because the Egyptian woman wished to touch him, fled from her hands, and, as though from the bite of a most rabid dog, lest the poison should creep in little by little, cast away the cloak which she had touched.

He did not say, because of fornication let every man take a wife; otherwise he would have loosed the reins of lust by this excuse, so that as often as a wife died, another must be taken as often, lest they fornicate; but let every man have his own wife. His own, he says, let him have, let him use his own, whom he had before he believed, whom it was good not to touch, and after the faith of Christ to know only as a sister, not as a wife, unless fornication made the touching of her excusable. And likewise the husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife. This whole question concerns those who are in marriage, whether it is lawful for them to put away their wives, which the Lord also forbade in the Gospel. Whence also the Apostle says, It is good for a man not to touch a woman.

But because he who has once taken a wife cannot abstain, except by consent, nor give a bill of divorce to one not sinning, let him render the debt to his spouse: for he bound himself of his own will, so that he is compelled to render it. I ask you, what sort of good is that which forbids prayer? Which does not permit the receiving of the body of Christ? As long as I fulfill the office of a husband, I do not fulfill that of one who is continent. The same Apostle bids elsewhere that we pray always. If we must always pray, then we must never be enslaved to marriage, since as often as I render the debt to my wife, I cannot pray.

Peter the Apostle, having experience of the bonds of marriage, see how he instructs the Church, what he teaches Christians: Likewise you husbands, dwelling with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the woman as to the weaker vessel, and as being joint-heirs of the manifold grace, that your prayers be not hindered. Behold, in the same sense—because also in the same spirit—he says that prayers are hindered by conjugal duty. And as to what he says, likewise, he thereby calls the husbands to imitation, because he had already above given a command to the wives, saying: That the husbands may behold in fear your chaste conversation, whose adorning let it not be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel; but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptibility of a quiet and meek spirit. This is well pleasing in the sight of God. Do you see what sort of marriage he enjoins between husbands and wives?

Dwelling together according to knowledge, that they may know what God wills, what he desires, that they may give honour to the weaker vessel. If we abstain from intercourse, we give honour to our wives: if we do not abstain, it is plain that dishonour is contrary to honour. To the wives too he says, That the husbands may behold your chaste conversation, and the adorning, in the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptibility of a quiet and meek spirit. O truly a saying worthy of the Apostle, and of Peter of Christ. He gives a law to husbands and wives; and by condemning the adornment of the flesh, he preaches chastity, and the adorning of the inner man, in the incorruptibility of a quiet and meek spirit, saying in a manner: Since your outward man is corrupted, and you have ceased to have the blessedness of incorruption, which properly belongs to virgins, imitate at least the incorruption of the spirit through belated abstinence, and what you cannot offer in body, render in mind.

For these are the riches Christ seeks, and these the adornments of your union.

But lest anyone think, from what follows, That you may give yourselves to prayer, and again return together, that the Apostle wishes this, and does not grant it on account of a greater ruin, he immediately adds: Lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency. A fair indulgence indeed, and again together. What he is ashamed to call by its own name, what he prefers to the temptation of Satan, what has incontinence as its cause, we labor to explain as though it were obscure, when he himself has explained what he wrote: But this, he says, I say by indulgence, not by commandment. And do we still mutter that marriages are not to be called an indulgence, but a precept, as though second and third marriages were not granted in the same way, as though the doors of the Church were not opened by penance even to fornicators, and—what is greater than these—even to the incestuous?

For that violator of his stepmother, whom in the first Epistle to the Corinthians he had delivered to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved, in the second he draws back, and labors lest the brother be swallowed up with too much sorrow. It is one thing for the Apostle to wish something, another to pardon it. In willing, we merit; in pardon, we abuse. Do you wish to know what the Apostle wills? Join to it what follows: But I would that all men were even as myself. Blessed is he who shall be like Paul. Happy is he who hears the Apostle commanding, not pardoning. This, he says, I will, this I desire, that you be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ. He is a virgin from a Virgin, incorrupt from the incorrupt one. We, because we are men, and cannot imitate the birth of the Saviour, let us at least imitate his manner of life.

That belongs to divinity and blessedness, this to the human condition and to labor. I would that all men were like myself, so that, while being like me, they may become like Christ also, whose likeness I bear. For he that believes in Christ ought himself also to walk even as he walked. But every one has his proper gift from God: one after this manner, and another after that. What I wish, he says, is plain. But since in the Church the gifts are diverse, I grant marriage too, lest I seem to condemn nature.

And at the same time consider, that the gift of virginity is one thing, that of marriage another. For if the reward of marriage and of virgins were the same, he would never have said, after the precept of continence: But each one has his proper gift from God: one indeed thus, and another thus. Where there is a property proper to each, there is on either side a diversity. I grant that marriage also is a gift of God, but between gift and gift there is great diversity. Finally the Apostle also, concerning the same man repenting after his incest, says on the contrary: Forgive him and comfort him, and if you have forgiven anyone anything, so also do I. And lest we should think the gift of a man to be despised, he added: For what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, for your sakes have I forgiven it in the person of Christ. The gifts of Christ are diverse. Whence also Joseph, in a type of him, had a coat of many colors.

And in the forty-fourth Psalm we read: The queen stood at thy right hand, in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety. And Peter the Apostle says, as fellow-heirs, of the manifold grace of God. Which is more significantly expressed in Greek as ποικίλης, that is, "varied."

There follows: But I say to the unmarried and to widows: It is good for them if they so remain, as I. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn. After he had granted to the married the use of marriage, and had shown what he himself wished, and what he would concede, he passes over to the unmarried and to widows, and sets forth his own example, and calls them happy if they so remain. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry—the same as above, But because of fornications, and, Lest Satan tempt you, because of your incontinence. And he gives the reason why he said, If they do not contain themselves, let them marry. Therefore it is better to marry, because it is worse to burn. Take away the heat of lust, and he will not say, it is better to marry.

For "better" always looks to a comparison with something worse, not to the simplicity of a good that is incomparable in itself. As if one should say: It is better to have one eye than none: it is better to lean on one foot, and support the other part of the body with a staff, than to crawl with broken legs. What do you say, O Apostle? I do not believe you when you say, Though rude in speech, yet not in knowledge. How does this descend from humility, that I am not worthy to be called an Apostle. And, To me, the least of all the Apostles. And, As to one born out of due time—so too I think this saying is one of humility. You know the properties of words, wherefore you also take certain testimonies from Epimenides, and from Menander, and from Aratus. When you speak of continence and virginity: It is good, you say, for a man not to touch a woman.

And, It is good for them if they so remain as I. And, I think this to be good for them because of the present necessity. And, Because it is good for a man to be so. When you come to marriage, you do not say, it is good to marry, because you cannot join it to what is better, than to burn; but you say: It is better to marry than to burn. If marriage is good in itself, do not compare it to a fire; but say simply, it is good to marry. I am suspicious of the goodness of a thing, when the magnitude of another evil forces a lesser thing to be called evil in a lower degree. But I do not want a lesser evil, but a good that is simply good in itself.

Thus far the first chapter has been expounded, let us come to what follows. But to them that are joined in matrimony, I command, not I, but the Lord, that the wife depart not from her husband. And if she depart, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: And let not the husband put away his wife. But to the rest I say, not the Lord: If any brother has a wife that believes not, and she consents to dwell with him, let him not put her away; and so forth, up to the place where he says: Let every one walk as the Lord has called him, and as I teach in all the churches. That passage does not pertain to the present controversy. For he teaches, according to the sentence of the Lord, that a wife is not to be put away except for the cause of fornication, and that one put away, while her husband lives, ought not to marry another, or else ought certainly to be reconciled to her husband.

But concerning those whom faith found already joined in matrimony, that is, if one of the two had believed, he commands that the believer should not put away the unbeliever. And having set forth the reasons, that the unbelieving spouse is a candidate for the faith, if he is unwilling to depart from the believer: on the other hand he commands, if the unbeliever puts away the believer on account of the faith of Christ, that the believer ought to depart, lest he prefer his spouse to Christ, to whom even the soul must be postponed. But now very many women, despising the command of the Apostle, are joined to Gentiles, and prostitute the temples of Christ to idols; nor do they understand that they are a part of his body, of whose ribs also they are. The Apostle pardons the union with unbelievers, in the case of those who, having husbands, afterward believed in Christ; not in the case of those who, being Christian, married Gentiles, to whom he speaks elsewhere: Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.

For what participation has justice with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? And what agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what part has the believer with the unbeliever? And what consent has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. For although I know that very many matrons will rage against me, though with the same impudence with which they have despised the Lord, they will rave against me, a flea and the least of Christians: nevertheless I will say what I think: I will speak what the Apostle has taught me—that these women belong not to justice, but to iniquity; not to light, but to darkness; not to Christ, but to Belial; not to the temples of the living God, but to the shrines and idols of the dead. Do you wish to learn more openly, that it is altogether unlawful for a Christian woman to marry a heathen?

Hear the same Apostle: A woman, he says, is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband die, she is free; let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord—that is, a Christian. He who permits second and third marriages "in the Lord" forbids a first marriage with a heathen. Whence also Abraham makes his servant swear upon his thigh, that is, upon Christ, who was to be born of his seed, that he should not bring a foreign wife to his son Isaac. And Ezra checks the offense of God arising from such marriages by the putting away of such wives. And the prophet Malachi says: Judah has transgressed, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For he has profaned the holiness of the Lord, and has loved, and has taken the daughter of a strange god as wife. May the Lord destroy the man who does this, both teacher and disciple, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, even him that offers gifts to the Lord of hosts.

I have said these things for this reason, that those who compare marriage to virginity may know that at least such marriages must be subjected to bigamy and trigamy.

To the discussion above, in which he had taught that the believer ought not to depart from the unbeliever, but should remain in matrimony as faith had found them, and that each one, whether celibate or married, should so continue, as he was found to be by the baptism of Christ, he suddenly introduces the parables of the circumcised and the Gentile, of the slave and the free man: and under the metaphor of these he discusses marriage and the unmarried state. Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not bring on uncircumcision. Is any man called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide in the same calling in which he was called. Were you called being a servant? Care not for it. But if you may be made free, use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the freedman of the Lord.

Likewise he that is called, being free, is the servant of Christ. You are bought with a price; be not made the servants of men. Let every one, therefore, brethren, in whatsoever state he is called, therein abide with God. And first, since I think some will find fault with this understanding, I would like to ask what the consequence is, that in discussing husbands and wives he should suddenly pass over to a comparison of Jew and Gentile, of slave and free: and again, this discussion being finished, should return to virgins, saying: Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord—not long after, that is, of a Christian, not a Gentile, who permits second marriages I have. What is the point of this comparison between marriage and virginity, Jew and Gentile, slave and free? Secondly, how can it be understood: If any man was called being circumcised, let him not bring on uncircumcision? Can one who has once had his foreskin cut off, if he wishes, bring it back again?

Then, in what sense is this to be explained: For he that is called in the Lord, being a bondman, is the freeman of the Lord: likewise he that is called, being free, is the bondman of Christ? Fourthly, how can he who commanded servants to obey their fleshly masters now say: Be not made the servants of men? Finally, what has to do with slavery, or with circumcision, the statement, Let every man, wherein he was called, brother, therein abide with God? For this seems contrary to the previous statement. For if we have heard, Be not made the servants of men, by what reasoning can we abide in that calling wherein we were called, since many have believed while having fleshly masters, whom they are now forbidden to serve? Furthermore, as regards circumcision, what does it mean to abide in that calling wherein we were called, when in another place the same Apostle cries out: Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing?

It remains, then, that circumcision and uncircumcision, bondman and free, should be fitted to the preceding sense, and depend upon what went before. If any man was called being circumcised, let him not bring on uncircumcision. That is, he says, at the time when you were called and believed in Christ, if you were called circumcised, having a wife, and were single: do not take a wife, that is, do not bring on uncircumcision, lest you burden the liberty of circumcision and chastity with the burden of marriage. Again, if any man was called in uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised. You had, he says, a wife, when you believed: do not think the faith of Christ a cause of separation, because God has called us in peace. For without works, both celibacy and marriage profit nothing, since even faith, which properly belongs to Christians, is said to be dead if it has no works; and by this rule even the virgins of Vesta, and the once-married priestesses of Juno, could be counted in the order of Saints.

Let every man abide in the calling wherein he was called. When he believed, whether he had a wife or not, let him abide in that wherein he was called. And by this he does not so much compel virgins to marry, as forbid divorces. And just as he takes away from those who have wives the license of putting them away, so from virgins he cuts off the possibility of marrying. Were you called being a bondman? Care not for it; but if you may be made free, use it rather. Even if, he says, you have a wife, and are bound to her, and pay the debt, and have not power of your own body; indeed (to speak more plainly) you are a servant of your wife, do not on this account be sad, nor sigh for lost virginity. But even if you can find some cause of separation, so as to enjoy the liberty of chastity, do not seek your own salvation at the cost of another's ruin.

Keep your wife a while longer, and do not run ahead of her while she lingers: wait until she follows. If you act patiently, the wife will be changed into a sister. For he that is called in the Lord, being a bondman, is the freeman of the Lord: likewise he that is called, being free, is the bondman of Christ. He gives the reasons why he does not wish wives to be deserted. Therefore he says: I command that those who believe in Christ from among the Gentiles should not abandon marriages entered into before the faith: because he who, having a wife, has believed, is not held to so great a servitude of God as virgins and the unmarried are; but is in a certain way freer, and the reins of servitude are loosened for him: and while he is a servant of his wife, so to speak, he is a freedman of the Lord.

Further, he who, not having a wife, believed, and was called by the Lord free from the bondage of marriage, he is truly a servant of Christ. What happiness, not to be the servant of a wife, but of Christ; not to serve the flesh, but the spirit! For he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit. And lest, perhaps, in what he had said above, Were you called being a bondman? Care not for it; but if you may be made free, use it rather, he should seem to have mocked continence, and to have handed us over into servitude to spouses, he adds a sentence which cuts off every quibble: You are bought with a price; be not made the servants of men. We have been redeemed by the most precious blood of Christ: the lamb has been slain for us, and sprinkled with the most burning dew of hyssop, we have burned away all the phlegm of harmful pleasure.

Now that Pharaoh is dead in baptism, and his whole army drowned, why do we seek Egypt again, and after manna, the food of Angels, sigh for garlic and onions and melons, and the meats of Pharaoh?

Having finished the discussion of married persons and the continent, he comes at last to virgins, and says: Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; but I give counsel, as having obtained mercy of the Lord, to be faithful. I think therefore that this is good for the present necessity, that it is good for a man so to be. Here the adversary revels with all exultation, shaking, as with a most mighty battering ram, the wall of virginity: "Behold," he says, "the Apostle confesses that concerning virgins he has no commandment of the Lord: and he who had commanded with authority concerning husbands and wives, dares not command what the Lord did not command. And rightly so. For what is commanded is enjoined: what is enjoined must necessarily be done: what must necessarily be done, if it is not done, incurs punishment.

For it is commanded in vain, what is left to the free will of him to whom it is commanded." If the Lord had commanded virginity, he would seem to condemn marriage, and to take away the seed-bed of mankind, whence virginity itself is born. If he had cut off the root, how would he seek fruit? If he had not first laid the foundations, how could he build the edifice, and set the roof to cover the whole above? By great labor of diggers mountains are overturned: the very depths of the earth are penetrated, that gold may be found. And when it has been gathered together from the tiniest grains, first by the smelting of the furnace, then by the skillful hand of the craftsman, into a mass; not he is called blessed who brought gold out of mud, but he who enjoys the beauty of gold. Do not wonder, then, if amid the ticklings of the flesh, and the incitements of vice, we are not compelled to the life of Angels, but taught it.

Because where counsel is given, the choice is that of the one offering it: where a command is given, it is the necessity of one who serves. I have, he says, no commandment of the Lord; but I give counsel, as having obtained mercy from the Lord. If you have no commandment of the Lord, why do you dare to give counsel, concerning which you have no order? The Apostle will answer me: Do you want me to command what the Lord rather offered than commanded? He, the creator and potter, knowing the fragility of the vessel that he had made, left virginity in the power of the hearer, and shall I, the Teacher of the Gentiles, who became all things to all men, that I might gain all, immediately at the outset impose the burden of perpetual chastity on the necks of weak believers?

Let them first learn the holidays of marriage, let them for a time be free for prayer, so that, having received a taste of chastity, they may always desire to have that in which they were briefly delighted. The Lord, being tempted by the Pharisees, whether it was lawful according to the law of Moses to put away wives, altogether forbade it to be done. Which the disciples considering, said to him: If the case of a man with his wife be so, it is not expedient to marry.

To whom he answered: All men take not this word, but they to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs, who were born so from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs, who were made so by men; and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it. It is plain why the Apostle said, Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; surely because the Lord had said beforehand: All men take not this word, but they to whom it is given. And, he that can take, let him take it. The judge of the contest sets forth the prize, invites to the race, holds in his hand the trophy of virginity: he shows the purest fountain, and cries out: He that thirsts, let him come, and drink. He does not say, whether you will or not, you must drink and run: but whoever wishes, whoever is able to run, and to drink, he shall conquer, he shall be satisfied.

And therefore Christ loves virgins the more, because they offer of their own accord what was not commanded them. And it is of greater grace to offer what you do not owe, than to render what is exacted of you. The Apostles, contemplating the burdens of a wife: If the case of a man with his wife be so, they say, it is not expedient to marry. Whose judgment the Lord approving, says: You judge rightly, indeed, that it is not expedient for a man tending toward the kingdom of heaven to take a wife; but it is a difficult thing, and all do not take this word, but only those to whom it is given. Nature makes some eunuchs, the violence of men makes others. To me those eunuchs are pleasing, whom not necessity but will has made eunuchs. Gladly I receive into my bosom those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, and, for the worship of me, have refused to be what they were born.

And at the same time this sentence is to be considered: They have made themselves eunuchs, he says, for the kingdom of heaven. If eunuchs have the reward of the kingdom of heaven, then those who have not made themselves eunuchs cannot receive the place of eunuchs. He that can take, he says, let him take it. It is a matter of great faith, and great virtue, to be the purest temple of God, to offer oneself wholly as a burnt-offering to the Lord; and, according to the same Apostle, to be holy both in body and in spirit. These are the eunuchs who, thinking themselves a dry tree because of their barrenness, hear through Isaiah that in place of sons and daughters they have a place prepared in heaven. Of these the type is Abdemelech the eunuch in Jeremiah; and that eunuch of Queen Candace in the Acts of the Apostles, who, because of the strength of his faith, obtained the name of a man.

To these also Clement, the successor of the Apostle Peter, whom the apostle Paul mentions, writes Epistles, and weaves almost his whole discourse around the purity of virginity: and afterwards many Apostolic men, and Martyrs, and men illustrious both in holiness and eloquence, whom it is very easy to know from their own writings. For I think, he says, that this is a good work because of the present necessity. What is that necessity which, spurning the bond of marriage, seeks the freedom of virginity? Woe to them that are with child, and that give suck, in that day. It is not here harlots, not brothels, that are condemned, of whose condemnation there is no doubt: but swelling wombs, and the crying of infants, and the fruit and works of marriage. Because it is good for a man so to be. If it is good for a man to be so, then it is bad for a man not to be so. Are you bound to a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife?

Seek not a wife. Each of us has his own boundaries: give me mine, and keep yours. If you are bound to a wife, do not give her a bill of divorce. If I am loosed from a wife, let me not seek a wife. As I do not dissolve marriages, once they are bound; so do not you bind what is loosed. And at the same time the significance of the words is to be considered. He who has a wife is called a debtor, and is said to be in uncircumcision, and a servant of his wife, and, what belongs to bad servants, bound. But he who is without a wife, first is a debtor to no one, then circumcised, thirdly free, and finally loosed.

Let us hasten through the rest, for the size of the volume does not permit us to linger longer over particulars. "But if thou take a wife, thou hast not sinned." It is one thing not to sin, another to do well. "And if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned." Not that virgin who has once dedicated herself to the worship of God: for of these, if any marry, she shall have damnation, because she has made void her first faith. But if he should object that this was said of widows, how much more will it prevail concerning virgins, since it is not lawful even for those to whom it was once lawful! For virgins who marry after consecration are not so much adulteresses as incestuous women.

And lest he should seem, in what he had said, "And if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned," to be again inviting the celibate to marriage, he at once restrains himself, and by adding something else, weakens what he had conceded, saying: "Nevertheless such shall have tribulation of the flesh." Who are these who shall have tribulation of the flesh? Those to whom he had above conceded: "If thou take a wife, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned: nevertheless such shall have tribulation of the flesh." We, ignorant of the matter, supposed that marriage at least had the joy of the flesh. But if there is tribulation for those who marry even in the flesh, in which alone they seemed to have their delights, what remains for the sake of which they should marry, since there is tribulation in the spirit, and in the soul, and in the very flesh?

"But I spare you." Thus, he says, I put forward the tribulation of the flesh, as though there were not greater reasons why you ought not to marry. "This therefore I say, brethren: The time is short. It remaineth, that they also who have wives, be as if they had none." I am no longer disputing about virgins, concerning whom there is no doubt that they are blessed. I come to the married. "The time is short, the Lord is near." Even if we were to live nine hundred years, as the men of old, still it ought to be considered short, seeing it would at some time have an end, and cease to be. But now, since the tribulation of marriage is more lasting than its joy, why do we take wives whom we shall be compelled soon to lose?

"And they that weep," he says, "as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as if they possessed not; and they that use this world, as if they used it not. For the fashion of this world passeth away". If the world passes away, in which all things are enclosed—nay, the fashion and manner of life of this world, like a cloud, passes away—then among the other works of the world marriages too shall pass away. For there shall be no marriages after the resurrection. But if death is the end of marriage, why do we not turn necessity into will? And why do we not offer to God, in hope of reward, that which will be wrested from us even against our will? "He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God.

But he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided." Let us look at the difference between the cares of a virgin and of a married man. The virgin desires to please the Lord, the married man to please his wife, and in order that he may please his wife, he is solicitous about the things of the world, which of course shall pass away with the world; and he is divided—that is, distracted into many parts of anxieties and miseries. It is not the place here to describe the straits of marriage, and to exult, as it were, in commonplace rhetorical style. I think this matter has been more fully treated in my work against Helvidius, and in the book which I wrote to Eustochium. Certainly Tertullian too, while still a young man, played with this subject. And my teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus, discussing virginity and marriage, set it forth in Greek verses.

Now I briefly note this: in the Latin manuscripts this passage is read thus: "The virgin and the wife are divided." Although this has its own sense, and has even been so explained by me according to the character of the passage, yet it is not the true reading of the Apostle. For the Apostle wrote thus, as we have translated above: "He is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided"; and having concluded this sentence, he passes on to virgins and the continent, and says: "The unmarried woman, and the virgin, thinketh on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit." Not every unmarried woman is also a virgin. But whoever is a virgin is certainly also unmarried.

Although for elegance of diction he might have repeated the same thing in another word, "the unmarried woman and the virgin"; or else he wished to define what "unmarried" meant, that is, virgin—lest we should think harlots, joined to no fixed marriage, to be "unmarried." What then does the unmarried woman and virgin think on? "The things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit." Even if there were nothing else, even if no greater reward followed the virgin, this preeminence alone would suffice for her, to think on the things of the Lord. And at once he teaches what that very thought is: "that she may be holy in body and spirit." For there are some who are virgins in flesh, not in spirit, whose body is whole, but whose soul is corrupted. But that virginity is a sacrifice to Christ, whose mind no thought, and whose flesh no lust has stained. On the contrary, she that is married thinks on the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

Just as he who has a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife: so the married woman thinks on the things of the world, how she may please her husband. "But we are not of this world," which is set in wickedness, whose fashion passes away, of which it is said to the Apostles: "If you were of this world, the world would love its own". And lest perhaps it should be thought that he was imposing a most grievous burden of chastity upon the unwilling, he at once joins the reasons for persuasion, and says: "And this I speak for your profit: not to cast a snare upon you, but for that which is decent, and which may give you power to attend upon the Lord without impediment." The Latin tongue does not express the Greek propriety: for by what words could one set forth, Πρὸς τὸ εὔσχημον καὶ εὐπρόσεδρον τῷ Κυρίῳ ἀπερισπάστως? Whence also, on account of the difficulty of translation, this is not found at all in the Latin manuscripts.

Let us then use what we have translated. The Apostle does not impose a snare upon us, nor compel us to be what we do not wish; but he persuades to what is honorable and decent, and gives power to attend upon the Lord and to be ever solicitous, and to await the ready will of the Lord, so that, whatever he commands, one may fulfil it at once, like a vigorous and armed soldier, and do this without any distraction—which is given, according to Ecclesiastes, to the men of this world, that they may be distracted in it. "But if any man think that he seemeth dishonoured, with regard to his virgin"—that is, that his flesh grows wanton and boils up into lust, and he cannot restrain himself; and a double necessity is upon him, either of taking a wife, or of falling—"let him do what he will, he sinneth not, if she marry"; let him do, he says, what he wills, not what he ought.

He does not sin, if he takes a wife: yet he does not do well, if he takes her. "For he that hath determined being steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but having power of his own will, and hath judged this in his heart, to keep his virgin, doth well. Therefore, both he that giveth his virgin in marriage, doth well; and he that giveth her not, doth better". He had significantly and properly said above, "He that taketh a wife doth not sin"; here, "He that keepeth his virgin doth well." But it is one thing not to sin, another to do well. "Turn away," he says, "from evil, and do good". The one we avoid, the other we pursue. In the one is the beginning, in the other the perfection.

But lest, in what he said, "he that giveth his virgin in marriage doth well," someone should think our observation does not hold; he at once diminishes this very good, and overshadows it by comparison with the better, and says: "And he that giveth her not doth better." Unless he were about to add "doth better," he would never have prefixed "doth well." But where there is a good and a better, there the reward of the good and of the better is not one; and where there is not one reward, there certainly are diverse gifts. So great therefore is the difference between marriage and virginity, as between not sinning and doing well; nay, to put it more gently, as between good and better.

Having finished the discussion of marriage and virginity, with a cautious moderation of precepts between the two, so as to turn neither to the left nor to the right, but to walk by the royal road, and fulfil that saying, "Be not overmuch just", he again compares monogamy with digamy second marriage, and just as he had subjected marriage to virginity, so he subjects digamy to first marriage, and says: "A woman is bound as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband die, she is at liberty; let her marry to whom she will, only in the Lord. But more blessed shall she be, if she so remain, according to my counsel. And I think that I also have the Spirit of God". He allows second marriages, but to those who are willing, but to those who cannot contain themselves; lest, growing wanton against Christ, they should wish to marry, having damnation, because they have made void their first faith, and this he allows, because many have already turned aside after Satan.

But he says they will be more blessed, if they so remain: and he immediately adds the Apostolic authority, "according to my counsel." Furthermore, lest the authority of the Apostle should seem lighter, as of a mere man, he added: "And I think that I also have the Spirit of God." Where he calls to continence, there it is not the counsel of a man, but of the Spirit of God; but where he grants leave to marry, he does not name the Spirit of God, but weighs the counsel of prudence, thus relaxing to each according as each can bear it. According to this sense all those passages are to be taken: "For the woman that hath a husband, whilst her husband liveth, is bound to the law; but if her husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. Therefore, whilst her husband liveth, she shall be called an adulteress, if she be with another man.

But if her husband be dead, she is freed from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, if she be with another man". And that saying to Timothy: "I will therefore that the younger widows should marry, bear children, be mistresses of families, give no occasion to the adversary to speak evil. For already some have turned aside after Satan", and other things similar to these. For just as he grants marriage to virgins because of the danger of fornication, and makes excusable what is not sought for its own sake, so, for the avoiding of that same fornication, he grants second marriages to widows. "For it is better," although a second and a third, "to know one husband, than to know many": that is, it is more tolerable to be prostituted to one man than to many. For indeed that Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John, saying she had had six husbands, is charged by the Lord that he is not her husband.

For wherever there is a number of husbands, there the husband, who is properly one, has ceased to be. From the beginning one rib was turned into one wife. "And they two," he says, "shall be in one flesh": not three, nor four; otherwise they are no longer two, if there are more. Lamech, the first, a man of blood and a murderer, divided one flesh into two wives: fratricide and digamy were blotted out by the same punishment of the flood. For the one, vengeance was taken sevenfold, for the other, seventy times sevenfold. As much as they differ in number, so much do they differ in crime. How holy digamy is, is shown from this, that a man twice married cannot be chosen into the clergy, and therefore the Apostle says to Timothy: "Let a widow be chosen of no less than sixty years of age, who hath been the wife of one husband". Here the whole precept concerns those widows who are fed by the alms of the Church.

And therefore an age is prescribed, so that only those may receive the food of the poor who can no longer labor. And at the same time consider, that she who has had two husbands, even if she be an old woman, and decrepit, and needy, does not deserve to receive the offerings of the Church. But if that bread of alms is taken from her, how much more that Bread which came down from heaven, which whoever eats unworthily, shall be guilty of the violated body and blood of Christ!

Although these testimonies which I have set forth above, in which it is granted to widows that they may, if they wish, marry again, some interpret as referring to those widows whom the faith of Christ found already in such a state after the loss of their husbands. For it would not be consistent that the Apostle, after baptism, upon the death of a husband, should command a woman to marry another, since he also commanded those who have wives to be as though they had none, and for this reason the number of wives is not defined: because after the baptism of Christ, even if she has had a third and fourth husband, she is reckoned as if it were her first. Otherwise, if after baptism, when the first husband has died, a second is accepted, why is not a sixth accepted when the second, third, fourth, and fifth have died, and so on?

For it can happen, by some misfortune, or by the judgment of God cutting short repeated marriages, that a young woman may take many husbands, while an old woman may be widowed in extreme age by her first husband. The first Adam was a monogamist; the second was unmarried. Let those who approve of digamy produce a third Adam, a digamist, whom they might follow. But suppose that Paul granted second marriages; by the same rule he grants a third also, and a fourth, and as many as the husband dies. The Apostle is compelled to wish for many things which he does not wish. He circumcised Timothy, he himself shaved his head, he practiced going barefoot, he let his hair grow, and cut it off at Cenchreae. And certainly he had rebuked the Galatians, and had reproved Peter, because he separated himself from the Gentiles on account of Jewish observances.

Just as, then, in other disciplines of the Church he became to the Jews as a Jew, to the Gentiles as a Gentile, and all things to all men, that he might gain them all: so also he granted digamy to the incontinent, and did not fix a limit to the number of marriages, so that when women see that a second marriage is granted to them after the death of a husband in the same way that a third and fourth is granted, they may blush to take another, lest they be compared to those thrice or four times married. For where one has already exceeded the limit, it makes no difference whether it be the second or the third, since he has already ceased to be a monogamist. All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. I do not condemn those twice married, nor even those thrice married, and, if it may be said, those married eight times: I will add something more—I even receive a fornicator who repents.

Whatever is equally lawful must be weighed in an equal balance.

But since he draws us to the Old Testament, and beginning from Adam, comes down to Zachariah and Elisabeth; and then sets against us Peter and the other apostles, we too ought to run through the same tracks of questions, and to teach that chastity was always preferred to the work of marriage. And concerning Adam and Eve indeed this must be said, that before the offense they were virgins in paradise; but after the sin, and outside paradise, marriage followed immediately. Then, that the Apostle himself interprets this very thing: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh (from). And immediately he adds: This is a great mystery. But I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Christ is a virgin in the flesh, a monogamist in spirit. For he has one Church, of which the same Apostle says: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church.

If Christ loves the Church holily, chastely, without any blemish: let husbands also love their wives in chastity, and let each one know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of desire, as do the Gentiles who know not God: For God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification: putting off from us the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, which is renewed unto knowledge according to the image of his Creator: where there is neither male nor female, Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all. The image of the Creator has no union of marriage. Where the diversity of sex is taken away, and we put off the old man and put on the new, there we are reborn into Christ the virgin, who was born of a virgin, and reborn through a virgin.

But as for what is said: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, it was necessary first to plant the forest and let it grow, so that afterward there might be something to cut down. And at the same time the force of the word must be considered—fill the earth. Marriage fills the earth, virginity fills paradise. But this too must be observed, at least according to the Hebrew truth, that whereas Scripture, on the first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days, when the works of each were finished, said: And God saw that it was good, on the second day this was altogether omitted: leaving us to understand that the double number is not good, because it divides from unity, and prefigures the bonds of marriage. Whence in Noah's ark all animals which entered by twos are unclean. The odd number is clean. Although in the double number another mystery is also shown, namely, that not even among beasts and unclean birds was digamy approved.

For unclean animals enter two by two, but those which are clean enter by sevens, so that Noah might have, after the flood, something from the odd number which he could at once offer to God.

But if Enoch is translated, and Noah is preserved in the flood, I do not think Enoch was translated because he had a wife; but because he was the first to call upon God, and believed in the Creator, concerning whom the apostle Paul teaches most fully in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Moreover Noah, who was kept as a kind of second root for the human race, was of necessity to be preserved together with his wife and children. Although in this too there is a mystery of the Scriptures. That ark, according to the apostle Peter, was a type of the Church, in which eight souls were saved. When Noah enters into it, both he himself and his sons are separated from their wives: but when he goes out into the earth, the pairs are joined together: and what had been separated in the ark, that is, in the Church, is joined together in the conversation of the world.

And likewise, if the ark had many dwelling-places and little nests, and two-storied and three-storied compartments, and different kinds of beasts; and, according to the quality of the animals, dwellings also either larger or smaller, I judge that that diversity of dwellings prefigured the variety of the Church.

But as to what he objects to us, that in the second blessing of God permission was given to eat flesh, which had not been granted in the first, let him know that, just as, according to the word of the Savior, divorce was not given from the beginning, but was granted to the human race through Moses on account of the hardness of our heart; so too the eating of flesh was unknown up until the flood. But after the flood, just as quails were given to the murmuring people in the wilderness: so were the sinews and virulences of flesh brought into our teeth. The Apostle teaches, writing to the Ephesians, that God purposed, in the fullness of time, to gather up all things again, and to draw back to the beginning, in Christ Jesus, the things that are in the heavens and on the earth. Whence the Savior himself says in the Apocalypse of John: I am, he says, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

From the beginning of the human condition, we neither ate flesh, nor gave divorce, nor were our foreskins taken from us as a sign. This course we followed up to the flood. But after the flood, together with the giving of the Law, which no one was able to fulfill, flesh was brought in for eating, and divorces were granted to hardness of heart, and the knife of circumcision was applied; as though the hand of God had created more in us than was necessary. But after Christ came at the end of the ages, he rolled back the Alpha and Omega to the Alpha, and drew back the end to the beginning: neither is it permitted to us to give divorce, nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat flesh, the Apostle saying: It is good neither to drink wine, nor to eat flesh. For wine also, together with flesh, was consecrated after the flood.

What shall I say of Abraham, whom he himself asserts to have been thrice married, who received the sign of faith in circumcision? If we imitate the number of his wives, let us also imitate his circumcision. For he is not to be followed in part and rejected in part. Moreover Isaac, husband of Rebecca alone, prefigures the Church of Christ, and reproves the wantonness of digamy. But if Jacob had two pairs of wives and concubines, and our adversary is unwilling to agree that bleary-eyed, unattractive, and fruitful Leah bore forth the type of the synagogue, while Rachel, beautiful and long barren, signified the mystery of the Church, let him know that Jacob did this at the time when he was among the Assyrians, and in Mesopotamia was serving Laban, a most harsh master.

But when he wished to enter the Holy Land, and built on Mount Galaad the heap of testimony, in which the possessor of Mesopotamia found nothing among his baggage, swearing that he would never return to the place where he had served; and when at the torrent Jaboc he wrestled with the Angel, and began to limp, and his broad sinew withered, and immediately he was given the name Israel: and that once-beloved wife, for whom he had served, near Bethlehem, in which the Lord was to be born, the herald of virginity, is slain by the son of sorrow; and the companions of Mesopotamia die in the Gospel city.

But I wonder why he has set before us Judah and Thamar as an example, unless perhaps he also delights in harlots; or Onan, slain because he grudged his brother seed: as though we approved of any flow of seed whatsoever apart from the begetting of children. It is plain concerning Moses, that he would have been in danger at the inn, had not Sephora, whose name means "bird," circumcised her son, and cut away the foreskin of marriage with the Gospel knife. This surely is that Moses who, when he had seen the great vision, and the Angel, or the Lord, speaking in the bush, was in no way able to approach him, until he had loosed the strap of his shoe, and cast away the bonds of marriage. Nor is this to be wondered at concerning the friend and prophet and lawgiver of God, since the whole people, about to approach Mount Sinai and to hear the word of God, were commanded to be sanctified for three days, and to abstain from their wives.

Which indeed we know (though I may be somewhat disturbing the order of the history) was also said to David when fleeing, by Achimelech the priest: Are the young men clean from women? And he answered: Since yesterday and the day before. For the loaves of the presence, being as it were the body of Christ, could not be eaten by those rising from the beds of their wives. And in passing we ought to consider what he said: Are the young men clean from women? Namely, that in regard to the purity of the body of Christ, all intercourse is unclean. In the Law also it is commanded that the high priest shall marry none but a virgin, nor take a widow. If the condition of the virgin and of the widow is the same, why is the one accepted and the other rejected? And the widow of a priest is commanded to sit in her father's house, and not to know a second marriage.

If the priest's sister, a virgin, dies, he is commanded to go to her funeral just as to that of his father and mother. But if she is married, she is disregarded as though a stranger. He who has taken a wife, and he who has planted a vineyard—like the offshoots of sons—is forbidden to go forth to war. For the servant of a wife cannot serve in the army of the Lord. And from the mirrors of the fasting women, as from the purest bodies of virgins, the laver in the tabernacle is cast: and within, in the sanctuary, both the Cherubim, and the Mercy Seat, and the ark of the testament, and the table of the presence, and the candlestick, and the censer, are of the purest gold. For silver could not be brought into the Holy of Holies.

Why do I linger over Moses, since my purpose is, in swift and hasty dictation, to touch upon each point briefly, and to draw certain lines of understanding? Let me pass on to Jesus the son of Nave, who was formerly called Ause, or, as is more correctly found in the Hebrew, Osee, that is, savior. For he, according to the Epistle of Jude, saved the people Israel and led them out of Egypt, and brought them into the land of promise. As soon as this Jesus came to the Jordan, the waters of marriage, which had always flowed in the Law, were dried up and stood still; and the whole people crossed over with dry and bare feet, and came to Galgala, where it was circumcised a second time. Now if we take this according to the letter, it cannot stand at all. For if we had a double foreskin, or if, once the skin had been cut off, it grew back again, a second circumcision would rightly have its place.

But now this is signified: that Jesus circumcised with the knife of the Gospel the people who had come through the desert, and circumcised them with a knife of stone, so that what had been prefigured before in a few under Moses' son, might now be fulfilled under Jesus in all. Moreover, the very foreskins, gathered into one heap, buried, and covered with earth, and the reproach of Egypt taken away, and the name of the place Galgala, which is interpreted "revelation," show that while the people walked through the desert in uncircumcision, their eyes had been blinded. Let us also look at what follows. After the circumcision of the Gospel, and the consecration of the twelve stones in the place of revelation, the Passover is at once celebrated: the lamb is immolated for them, and they feed upon the produce of the holy Land. Jesus goes forth; the Prince of the host meets him, holding a sword—that is, either showing himself ready to fight for the circumcised people, or cutting asunder the bond of marriages.

And just as it had been commanded to Moses, so it is commanded to him also: "Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground". For thus was the Lord's army armed with priestly trumpets, as though, under the type of Jericho, the world were being overturned by the Gospel preaching. And to pass over countless other things (for it is not now my purpose to lay open all the mysteries of the Old Testament), the five kings, who had before reigned in the land of promise and resisted the Gospel army, are overcome when Jesus fights. This, I think, is plain to the understanding: that before the Lord led forth his people out of Egypt and circumcised them, sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch reigned, and all things were subject to these as to princes. These Jesus, when they fled to the cave of the body and to the dark place, entering that very body, slew, so that they were killed by the very means by which they had formerly reigned.

But now it is time that we should raise the banner of the chastity of Jesus. Moses is written to have had a wife. But both our Lord and the Apostle interpret Moses as the Law: "They have Moses and the Prophets". And: "From Adam to Moses sin reigned, even over those who had not sinned, after the likeness of Adam's transgression"; and there is no doubt that in both testimonies Moses signifies the Law. As, then, we read that Moses, that is, the Law, had a wife, show me that Jesus the son of Nave had either a wife or children; and if you can show it, I will confess myself vanquished.

And indeed he received the fairest portion of the land of Judaea when it was divided, and he dies, not at the age of twenty—a number always ill-omened in the Scriptures, in which Jacob served, and Joseph was sold, and which Esau loves, receiving in it certain gifts—but at the age of ten, whose praise we have often spoken; and he is buried in Thamnath-sare, that is, in "the most perfect principality," or in "the number of the new covering," so as to signify the flocks of virgins, covered by the help of the Savior on Mount Ephraim, that is, the fruit-bearing mountain, on the north side of Mount Gaas, which is interpreted "commotion." For "Mount Sion, on the sides of the north, is the city of the great King", which is ever set against envy, and through each temptation says: "But as for me, my feet were almost moved".

And when, at the burial of Jesus, the book which is called by his name is completed, again in the volume of Judges he is described as though living and rising again; and his works are proclaimed under a recapitulation; and we read: "Jesus sent away the people, and the children of Israel departed each to his own inheritance, that they might possess the land." And: "The people served the Lord all the days of Jesus," and so on. Then it is at once added: "And Jesus the son of Nave, the servant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old." Moses, on the other hand, only saw the land of promise and could not enter it, and died in the land of Moab, and the Lord buried him in the valley of the land of Moab, over against the house of Phogor, and no man knows his sepulchre to this day. Let us compare the burial of each: Moses dies in the land of Moab, Jesus in the land of Judaea.

The one is buried in a valley opposite the house of Phogor, which is interpreted "ignominy" (for in the Hebrew tongue Phogor is properly called Priapus); the other on Mount Ephraim, on the north of Mount Gaas. And in the plainest words the sense of the divine Scriptures is ever more majestic. For among the Jews glory lay in childbearing and offspring; and cursed was the barren woman who had no seed in Israel; and blessed was he whose seed was in Sion, and whose household in Jerusalem: and it was reckoned among the greatest blessings, "Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine on the sides of thy house. Thy children like olive plants round about thy table"; and for that reason his sepulchre is described as placed in a valley opposite the house of the idol, which is properly consecrated to lust. But we, who serve as soldiers under the leadership of Jesus, up to the present day do not know where Moses is buried.

For we despise Phogor, and all its ignominy, knowing that they who are in the flesh cannot please God. And the Lord, even before the flood, had said: "My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh". Wherefore also Moses, dying, is mourned by the people of Israel; but Jesus, as though about to live, is not mourned. For marriages end in death, but virginity begins to be crowned after death.

He also brings forward Samson, and does not consider that this Nazarite of the Lord was once shorn by a woman; who, although he holds the type of the Savior, in that he loved a harlot from the Gentiles, the Church, and slew far more enemies dying than he had slain living, nevertheless does not offer an example of conjugal chastity.

And indeed this is, according to the prophecy of Jacob, he who, when he was borne along with the swiftness of a spurred horse, was struck by the serpent and fell backward. But why he should have enumerated Deborah and Barak, and the wife of Heber the Kenite, I altogether fail to understand: since it is one thing to weave the order of history and the leaders of wars, another to signify certain figures of marriage, which do not appear at all in these persons. Further, that Jephthah preferred his father's faith to the tears of his virgin daughter serves our cause.

For we too proclaim not so much the virgins of the world, as those who are virgins for Christ's sake: and by very many of the Hebrews the father is blamed for his rash vow, when he said: "If thou wilt indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, whosoever shall come forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall be the Lord's, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering". If a dog, they say, if an ass had met him, what would he have done? From which they wish it to be understood that it came about by God's dispensation, that he who had vowed rashly should feel the error of his vow in the death of his daughter. But if Samuel, brought up in the tabernacle, took a wife, what prejudice is this to virginity?

As though today also very many priests do not have wives, and the Apostle does not describe a bishop as the husband of one wife, having children with all chastity. At the same time it must be known that Samuel was a Levite, not a priest, not a high priest. Whence also his mother made for him an Ephod bad, that is, a linen surplice, which garb is properly that of the Levites and of a lesser order. Whence also in the Psalms he is not named among the priests, but among those who call upon the name of the Lord: "Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name". For Levi begot Caath, Caath begot Aminadab, Aminadab begot Chore, Chore begot Assir, Assir begot Helchana, Helchana begot Sub, Sub begot Tou, Tou begot Eliu, Eliu begot Jeroam, Jeroam begot Helchana, Helchana begot Samuel. And there is no doubt that the priests were begotten of the stock of Aaron, and Eleazar, and Phinees.

And since these also had wives, they might rightly be objected against us, if, led by the error of the Encratites, we were to contend that marriages should be condemned: and were it not that our High Priest, according to the order of Melchisedec, is without father, without mother, ἀγενεαλόγητος, that is, without genealogy, that is to say, without marriage. And indeed Samuel reaps great fruits from his children: for, though he himself pleased God, he begot such sons as displeased the Lord. But if he objects Booz and Ruth to us, to prove a second marriage, let him know that in the Gospel, for the type of the Church, even Rahab the harlot is reckoned in the line of the Lord's ancestors.

Further, as to his boasting that David bought his wife with two hundred foreskins, let him know that David also had very many other wives besides, and that he received back Michol, the daughter of Saul, whom her father had given to another; and that, now an old man, he was warmed by the embraces of the Shunammite girl. Nor do I say this as though I dared to detract anything from holy men; but because it is one thing to live under the Law, another under the Gospel. That man slew Uriah the Hittite Gethite, according to the LXX, and became an adulterer with Bathsheba. And because he was a man of blood, not (as many suppose) on account of wars, but on account of murder, he is forbidden to build the Temple of the Lord.

But we, if we shall have scandalized one of the little ones, and if we shall have said to our brother, "Raca," and have not looked rightly, it is expedient that a millstone be hanged about our neck, and we shall be guilty of hell fire, and adultery is reckoned against us for a mere look. He passes on to Solomon, through whom Wisdom herself sang; and though he calls him a husband, and dwells at length upon his praises, I wonder why he does not also join that passage from the Song of Songs: "There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and virgins without number". And that from the third book of Kings, that he had seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines, and others innumerable. These indeed are they who turned away his heart from the Lord: and yet, before he had many wives and fell into the vices of the flesh, at the beginning of his reign and of his youth, he built a temple to the Lord.

For every man is judged not by what is to come, but by what is present. But if the examples of Solomon please him, then he will no longer be a digamist, but a trigamist; nay, unless he has seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, he will not be able to fulfil his type and merit. I beseech you, reader, and I often remind you of this very thing, that you know that I say these things of necessity; and that I do not detract from those who went before under the Law, but that they served their own times and conditions, and fulfilled that saying of the Lord: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth"; and, what is greater than this, they furnished types of things to come. But to us, to whom it is said, "The time is short," it remains that those who have wives should be as though they had none—another precept is given us, and virginity is consecrated by the virgin Savior.

How foolishly he has placed Elijah and Elisha in his catalogue of husbands is plain, even without my remarking on it. For if John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah, and John is a virgin, then surely Elijah came not only in his spirit, but also in bodily chastity.

Moreover, as to that which can be recalled concerning Hezekiah—although he, with his usual stupidity, did not see this—namely, that after his life was restored and a span of fifteen years extended to him, he said: "Henceforth I will beget sons"; let him know that this is not found in the Hebrew volumes, but that instead there is read: "The father shall make known thy truth to the sons." Nor is it strange that Huldah, wife of Shallum, a prophetess, is consulted by Josiah king of Judah, when captivity was already near, and the wrath of the Lord was dripping down upon Jerusalem; since this is the rule of the Scriptures, that when holy men fail, women are praised to the reproach of men.

It is superfluous, moreover, to speak of Daniel, since the Hebrews to this very day suppose both him and the three youths to have been eunuchs, on the ground of that saying of God which Isaiah speaks to Hezekiah: "And of thy sons that shall be born of thee, they shall take, and make them eunuchs in the house of the king". And again in Daniel we read: "And the king said to Ashpenaz, the master of the eunuchs, that he should bring in of the children of the captivity of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes, youths in whom there was no blemish, well favored in countenance, and skilful in wisdom". And they argue thus: if Daniel and the three youths were chosen from the royal seed, and Scripture foretold that from the royal seed there would be eunuchs, then these are they who were made eunuchs.

But if he should also raise the objection that is said in Ezekiel, that Noah and Daniel and Job could not deliver sons and daughters in a sinning land, the answer must be that this was spoken according to a hypothesis. For at that time Noah and Job were not living, whom we know to have lived many ages before. And the sense is: If such and such men were in a sinning land, they could not deliver their sons and daughters; because the righteousness of the father will not deliver the son, nor will the sin of one be imputed to another. "For the soul that has sinned, it shall die". But this too must be said: that Daniel, according to the history of his own book, was taken captive together with King Jehoiakim at the very time when Ezekiel also was led into captivity. How then could he have had sons, seeing he was still a boy? And when three years were completed, he was brought in to the king's service.

And lest anyone suppose that Ezekiel already mentions Daniel as a man, and not as a boy, it says: "And it came to pass in the sixth year," namely of King Jehoiakim, "in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month"; and, "I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me". And on that same day it is said to him, "If Noah and Daniel and Job should be." Daniel therefore was still a boy, and known to the people either on account of his interpretation of the king's dreams, or on account of the deliverance of Susanna and the slaying of the elders. And it is clearly proved that at the time when these things were said concerning Noah and Daniel and Job, Daniel was still a boy, and could not have had sons and daughters whom his own righteousness might deliver. Thus far concerning the Law.

He comes now to the Gospel, and sets before us Zachary and Elisabeth, Peter and his mother-in-law; and with his accustomed folly does not understand that these too ought to be numbered among those who served the Law. For the Gospel is not before the cross of Christ, which is consecrated by his passion and blood. According to this rule, Peter and the other Apostles—to grant him this superfluous concession for the moment—indeed had wives, but such as they had taken at a time when they did not yet know the Gospel. Being afterwards taken up into the apostolate, they left behind the office of marriage. For when Peter says to the Lord, in the person of the Apostles: "Behold, we have left all things, and followed thee": the Lord answered him, "Amen I say to you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children for the kingdom of God, who shall not receive much more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting".

But if he should set against us that text, to prove that all the Apostles had wives: "Have we not power to lead about women, or wives" (since γυνή among the Greeks signifies both) "as also the rest of the Apostles, and Cephas, and the brethren of the Lord"—let him also join that which is in the Greek codices: "Have we not power to lead about sister-women, or wives?" From which it appears that he spoke of other holy women, who according to the Jewish custom ministered to teachers from their own substance, as we read was done also to the Lord himself. For the order of the words signifies this: "Have we not power to eat and to drink, or to lead about sister-women"? Where, since eating and drinking, and the provision of expenses, are mentioned first, and the mention of sister-women follows, it is clear that wives are not to be understood, but those, as we have said, who ministered from their own substance.

This is also written of that Shunammite woman in the old Law, who was accustomed to receive Elisha, and to set for him a table, and bread, and a lampstand, and other things. Or certainly, if we take gynaikas, women as "wives" and not "women," the addition of "sisters" removes the sense of wives, and tends to show that they were sisters in the spirit, not spouses. Although, except for the Apostle Peter, it is not clearly related of the other Apostles that they had wives; and since it is written of one, and passed over in silence concerning the rest, we ought to understand that those were without wives concerning whom Scripture signifies nothing of the kind. And yet let him who has objected to us Zachary and Elisabeth, Peter and his mother-in-law, know that of Zachary and Elisabeth John was born, that is, from marriage a virgin, from the Law the Gospel, from matrimony chastity—so that by a virgin prophet the virgin Lord might both be announced and be baptized.

As for Peter, we may say that he had a mother-in-law at the time when he believed, but no longer had a wife, although in the περίοδοι both his wife and his daughter are mentioned. But now our whole contest is about the Canon. And since he has appealed to the Apostles, on the ground that the leaders of our discipline and the guides of Christian doctrine were not virgins—let us grant for the moment that they were not virgins—let him know that these are the Apostles of whom Isaiah prophesies: "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us seed, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah".

Those, therefore, who were of the Jews, could not have in the Gospel that virginity which they had lost in Judaism; and yet John, one of the disciples, who is said to have been the youngest among the Apostles, and whom the faith of Christ had found a virgin, remained a virgin, and therefore is loved more by the Lord, and reclines upon the breast of Jesus. And because Peter, who had had a wife, did not dare to ask, he asks him to ask. And after the resurrection, when Mary Magdalene announced that the Lord had risen, both ran to the tomb; but he outran the other.

And when they were in the boat fishing in the lake of Gennesaret, Jesus stood on the shore, and the Apostles did not know whom they saw: the virgin alone recognizes the virgin, and says to Peter, "It is the Lord." Again, after hearing the sentence, that Peter would be girded by another, and led where he would not, and that the passion of the cross had been foretold to him, and he said, "Lord, what shall this man do?"—not willing to abandon John, with whom he had always been joined, the Lord says to him, "What is it to thee if I will have him so to remain?" Whence also a saying went abroad among the brethren, that that disciple would not die. From which it is shown that virginity does not die, nor need the filth of marriage be washed away by the blood of martyrdom, but it remains with Christ, and its falling asleep is a passing over, not a death.

But if he should contend obstinately that John was not a virgin, and that we have wrongly said that virginity was the cause of his special love, let him explain, if John was not a virgin, why he was loved more than the other Apostles. But you say, upon Peter the Church is founded: although the very same thing is done in another place upon all the Apostles, and all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the strength of the Church is established equally upon them all; yet for this reason one is chosen among the twelve, so that, a head being established, the occasion of schism might be removed. But why was not John, the virgin, chosen?

It was granted on account of age, because Peter was older, lest one still a youth, and almost a boy, should be set before men of more advanced age; and the good Master, who ought to have removed from his disciples the occasion of contention, and who had said to them, "My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave with you"; and, "he that would be greater among you, let him be the least of all"—should seem to furnish, in the young man whom he loved, an occasion of envy. But that we may know that John was then a boy, the ecclesiastical histories most clearly teach that he lived even to the reign of Trajan, that is, that he fell asleep in the sixty-eighth year after the passion of the Lord: which we also have briefly touched upon in the book Concerning Illustrious Men. Peter is an Apostle; and John is Apostle, husband—and virgin; but Peter is Apostle only: John is Apostle, and Evangelist, and Prophet.

Apostle, because he wrote to the Churches as a teacher: Evangelist, because he composed a book of the Gospel, which, except for Matthew, none of the other twelve Apostles did. Prophet: for he saw, on the island of Patmos, to which he had been banished by the emperor Domitian on account of martyrdom for the Lord, the Apocalypse, containing countless mysteries of things to come. Tertullian, moreover, relates that at Rome, when he was thrown into a vat of boiling oil, he came forth purer and more vigorous than he went in. But his Gospel too differs greatly from the others. Matthew begins to write, as it were, from a man: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham"; Luke, from the priesthood of Zachary; Mark, from the prophecy of the prophet Malachi and of Isaiah.

The first has the face of a man, on account of the genealogy; the second the face of a calf, on account of the priesthood; the third the face of a lion, on account of the voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths". But our John, like an eagle, flies to the heights, and reaches to the Father himself, saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God," and so forth. Virginity revealed what marriage could not know; and, that I may sum up much in a brief statement, and show what privilege belongs to John—nay, rather to virginity in John—by the virgin Lord, the virgin mother is commended to the virgin disciple.

But we labor in vain and sweat to no purpose. For our adversary throws at us the Apostle's saying, and says: "Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not seduced; but the woman being seduced was in the transgression. Yet she shall be saved through bearing of children, if they continue in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety". Let us consider why the Apostle came to this statement, and whence he arrived at it: "I will therefore that men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands, without anger and disputing". Accordingly he then gives precepts of life for women, and says: "In like manner also women, in decent apparel, adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not in braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly attire; but, as it becomes women professing godliness, with good works. Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over the man; but to be in silence".

And lest the condition of woman should seem harsh, reducing her to servitude under her husband, he recalls the ancient law and returns to the original example: that Adam was made first, and then the woman from his rib; and that the devil could not seduce Adam, but Eve; and that after offending God, she was at once made subject to the man, and there was made a turning to her husband; and that she who has once been joined in marriage, and reduced to the condition of Eve, might blot out that ancient error by the bearing of children—yet on this condition, that she should train those very children in faith and love of Christ, and in sanctification and modesty; for it is not "sobriety" that ought to be read, as is wrongly found in the Latin copies, but "chastity," that is, σωφροσύνη. See, then, how by this very testimony also you are overcome; and how what you thought was in favor of marriage, you are forced to acknowledge as favoring virginity.

For if the woman is saved by bearing children, and the number of children is the salvation of mothers, why did he add, "if the children continue in charity and sanctification with chastity"? Then, therefore, the woman will be saved, if she has borne those children who are destined to remain virgins: if what she herself has lost, she gains back in her offspring; and compensates for the loss and decay of the root by the flower and the fruit.

Above, in passing, where our adversary had put forward Solomon, who married many wives, and who built the Temple of God, I had responded briefly, so as to run through the remaining questions. Now, lest he cry out that this man and other patriarchs and prophets and holy men of the Law have been slandered by us, let us set forth the opinion concerning marriage of this very man who had many wives and concubines. For no one can know better what a wife, or a woman, is than he who suffered it. He speaks, then, in Proverbs: A foolish and bold woman becomes destitute of bread. Whose bread? Surely his who came down from heaven; and immediately he adds: The earth-born perish beside her, and fall into the depths of hell. Who are the earth-born who perish beside her? Surely those who follow the first Adam, who is of the earth, and not the second, who is of heaven. And again in another place: As the worm in wood, so does an evil wife destroy her husband.

But if you assert that this was said of bad wives, I will answer you briefly: What necessity lies upon me to come into doubt whether the woman I shall marry will be good or bad? It is better, he says, to dwell in a desert land, than with a quarrelsome and irascible wife. How rare it is to find a wife without these faults, he knows who took a wife. Whence the eminent orator Varius Geminus wittily said, "He who does not quarrel is unmarried." It is better to dwell in the corner of a housetop, than with a scolding wife in a shared house. If a house shared by husband and wife raises the wife to pride, and brings insult upon the husband: how much more if the wife should be richer, and the husband should remain in her house! For then she begins to be not a wife, but a mistress; and if the husband should give offense, he must depart.

Dripping gutters drive a man out of his house on a wintry day, and likewise a scolding wife drives him from his own house. For by constant quarrels and daily chattering she makes his house run with leaks, and drives him out of his dwelling, that is, out of the Church. Whence also above the same Solomon warns: Son, do not overflow. And the Apostle to the Hebrews says: Therefore we ought to attend more earnestly to the things which are said, lest perhaps we should overflow. But who could keep silent about that which is written under a riddle? The leech had three daughters beloved with love, but these did not satisfy her, and a fourth does not suffice to say, "It is enough": Hell, and the love of a woman, and the earth which is not satisfied with water, and fire which does not say, "It is enough".

The leech is the devil; the devil's daughters are beloved with love, who cannot be satisfied with the blood of the slain: Hell, and the love of a woman, and the parched earth, and the raging fire. Here it is not said of a harlot, not of an adulteress, but the love of a woman is accused in general, which is always insatiable, which, though quenched, is kindled again, and after abundance is again destitute, and effeminates the manly spirit, and, except for the passion it endures, allows one to think of nothing else. We read something similar in the following parable: By three things the earth is moved, and a fourth it cannot bear: if a servant should reign, and a fool if he be filled with bread, and a hateful wife if she have a good husband, and a maidservant if she cast out her mistress. Behold, here too the wife is placed among the greatness of evils. But if you should answer, "but a hateful wife," I will say to you what I said above.

Yet this danger, that it should happen to me, is grave. For he who takes a wife is in doubt whether he takes a hateful one, or a lovable one. If he takes a hateful one, it cannot be borne. If a lovable one, her love is compared to hell, and to parched earth, and to fire.

Let us come to Ecclesiastes, setting forth also a few testimonies from him. For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to give birth, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. We were born in the Law with Moses; let us die in the Gospel with Christ. We planted in marriage; let us pluck up through chastity that which was planted. A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing. A time to love, and a time to hate. A time of war, and a time of peace. At the same time he warns us not to prefer the Law to the Gospel, nor to think the purity of virginity to be equated with marriage. The latter end of a speech, he says, is better than its beginning. And immediately he adds: Do not say, What has happened, that the former days were better than these?

For you have not inquired wisely concerning this: and he gives the reason why the latter days are better than the former: because, he says, wisdom is good along with an inheritance. For in the Law, wisdom of the flesh was followed by death, which kills; in the Gospel, wisdom of the spirit awaits an eternal inheritance. Behold this I have found, says Ecclesiastes, I have found one man among a thousand, but a woman among all these I have not found. But truly I have found this, that God made man upright, and they themselves have sought out evil thoughts. He says he found man upright. Consider the force of the word. In "man," both male and female are included; and "a woman," he says, "among all these I have not found." Let us read the beginning of Genesis, and we shall find that Adam, that is, man, is used to designate both male and female.

Since therefore we were created good and upright by God, we ourselves, through our own fault, have fallen into worse things; and what had been upright in us in paradise was corrupted once we went forth from paradise. But if you should object that before they sinned, the sexes of man and woman had already been divided, and that without sin they could have been joined—what would have happened is uncertain. For we cannot know the judgments of God, and by our own reckoning prejudge his decree. What was done is plain: that they who remained virgins in paradise, once cast out of paradise, were joined together. Or what harm would it have done, if paradise admitted marriage, and there were no difference between the married woman and the virgin, for them to have been joined together even in paradise beforehand? They are cast out of paradise; and what they did not do there, they do on earth, so that from the very beginning of the human condition, paradise consecrated virginity, and the earth consecrated marriage.

At all times let your garments be white. The everlasting whiteness of garments is the purity of virginity. In the morning we sowed our seed, and toward evening let us not cease. Let us who served marriage under the Law, serve virginity under the Gospel.

I pass on to the Song of Songs, and I shall show that what our adversary thinks is entirely for marriage, contains the mysteries of virginity. Let us hear what the bride says, before her Bridegroom comes to earth, suffers, enters the underworld, and rises again. We will make thee likenesses of gold with spangles of silver, until the king is at his repose. Before the Lord rose again, and the Gospel shone forth, the bride did not have gold, but only likenesses of gold. The silver, however, which she promises she will have at the wedding, she had, varied and distinct, among widows, the continent, and the married. Then the Bridegroom answers the bride, and teaches her that the shadow of the old Law has passed, and the truth of the Gospel has come. Rise, come, my neighbor, my bride, for behold the winter is past, the rain is gone away. This concerning the Old Testament. Again, concerning the Gospel and virginity: The flowers have appeared on the earth, the time of cutting has come.

Does it not seem to you to say the very thing the Apostle says: It remains that they who have wives be as though they had none? And more plainly concerning the proclamation of chastity: The voice, he says, of the turtledove is heard in our land. The turtledove, a most chaste bird, always dwelling in the heights, is a type of the Savior. Let us read the natural historians, and we shall find that it is the nature of the turtledove, that if it loses its mate, it does not join with another; and we shall understand that a second marriage is condemned even by dumb birds. And straightway the turtledove says to the turtledove: The fig tree has put forth her green figs, that is, the precepts of the old Law have fallen, and from the Gospel the flowering vines have given forth their fragrance. Whence also the Apostle: We are the good odor of Christ. Rise, come, my neighbor, my bride, and come.

Thou, my dove, in the covering of the rock beside the outer wall, show me thy face, and let thy voice sound in my ears, for thy voice is sweet and thy face comely. While thou wast veiling thy face with Moses, and there was a veil upon the Law, I did not see thy face, nor did I deign to hear thy voice, saying: And though you multiply your prayers, I will not hear you even so. But now, with face unveiled, behold my glory, and be covered by the most firm rock as by an outer wall. Hearing this, the bride opens the mysteries of chastity: My kinsman is mine, and I am his who feeds among the lilies, that is, among the whitest choirs of virgins. Do you wish to know what sort of throne our true peaceable Solomon has, what sort of armed guards? Behold, he says, the bed of Solomon, sixty mighty men around it of the mighty men of Israel, all holding swords, and trained for war, each man's sword upon his thigh.

Those who are around Solomon have swords upon the thigh, like that judge Aoth, ambidextrous, who slew the enemy who was very fat and wholly given over to the flesh, cutting off all pleasures. I will go, he says, to the mountain of myrrh: that is, to those who have mortified their bodies; and to the hill of Lebanon: to the purest flocks of virgins, and I will speak to my bride: Thou art all fair, my love, and there is no blemish in thee. Whence also the Apostle says: That he might present to himself a holy Church, not having spot or wrinkle. Come from Lebanon, bride, come from Lebanon: thou shalt come, and shalt pass on from the beginning of faith, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards. Lebanon is interpreted "whitening," that is, brightness. Come, then, most white bride, of whom it is elsewhere said: Who is this that comes up made white?

And passes through the way of this world: from the beginning of faith, and from Senir, which is interpreted "tooth of the lamp," according to what we read in the Psalm: Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths: and Hermon, that is, "consecration": and flee the dens of the lions, and the mountains of the leopards, which cannot change their spots. Flee, he says, the dens of lions, flee the pride of demons, so that after thou hast been consecrated to me, I may be able to say to thee: Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my bride, thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes, with one chain of thy neck. What he says is of this sort. I do not reject marriage—you have the left eye also, which I gave you on account of the weakness of those who cannot see rightly. But the right eye of virginity is more pleasing to me, which if it is blinded, the whole body is in darkness.

And lest we should think this signifies carnal love and bodily marriage, he at once excludes this meaning, and says: Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my bride. Where the name of sister occurs, all suspicion of base love is excluded. How beautiful are thy breasts above wine, of which he had said above: My kinsman is mine, and I am his; he shall lodge between my breasts: in the ruling faculty of the heart, where the word of God has its lodging. How beautiful are thy breasts, above wine. What is this wine, which makes the bride's breasts most beautiful, and enriches them with the milk of chastity? Surely that of which the Bridegroom speaks in what follows: I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O my friends, and drink, and be inebriated, brethren.

Whence also the Apostles were said to be full of new wine; new wine, it says, not old wine; because new wine is put into new wineskins: and they did not walk in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit. This is the wine which, when it has inebriated young men and maidens, at once they thirst for virginity; and belch forth in the drunkenness of chastity, and that prophecy of Zechariah is fulfilled—at least according to the Hebrew truth—prophesying concerning the virgins of the Church: Her streets shall be filled with infants and maidens playing. For what is her goodness, and what her beauty, but the grain of the elect, and the wine that brings forth virgins? These are the virgins of whom it is written in the forty-fourth Psalm: Virgins shall be brought to the king after her, her neighbors shall be brought to thee in gladness and rejoicing. They shall be brought into the temple of the king.

There follows: A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride: a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up. What is closed and sealed bears a likeness to the Mother of the Lord, a mother and a virgin. Whence also in the new sepulchre of the Savior, which had been hewn out of the hardest rock, no one was laid either before or after. And yet this ever-virgin is the mother of many virgins. For there follows: Thy shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruit of apples. In the pomegranates and apples is signified the harmony of all the virtues in virginity. My kinsman is white and ruddy; white in virginity, ruddy in martyrdom. And because he is ruddy and white, therefore it is immediately added, his throat is sweetness, and he is altogether desirable. The virgin Bridegroom, praised by the virgin bride, praises in turn the virgin bride, and says to her: How beautiful are thy steps in thy sandals, O daughter of Aminadab, which is interpreted, "of a people offering itself willingly".

For virginity is voluntary, and therefore the steps of the Church are praised in the beauty of chastity. It is not for the present occasion, in the manner of a commentary, to unfold all the mysteries of virginity in the Song of Songs, since I do not doubt that even these things will wrinkle the nose of a fastidious reader.

Let Isaiah speak the mystery of our hope and faith: Behold a virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel. I know that the Jews are accustomed to object that in Hebrew the word ALMA עלמה does not mean "virgin," but "young woman." And indeed a virgin is properly called BETHULA בתולה, but a young woman or girl is not called ALMA, but NAARA נערה. What then does ALMA signify? A hidden virgin, that is, not merely a virgin, but a virgin with intensity; because not every virgin is hidden, nor separated by chance from the sight of men.

Finally, even Rebecca in Genesis, on account of her exceeding chastity and as a type of the Church, which she signified in her virginity, is written ALMA, not BETHULA, as can be made clear from the words of Abraham's servant, which he speaks in Mesopotamia: And he said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, if thou dost direct my way by which I go, behold, while I stand by the fountain of water, the virgin who shall come out to draw water, and I shall say to her: Give me a little water, that I may drink of thy pitcher; and she shall answer, Drink thou, and I will draw for thy camels also: she shall be the wife whom the Lord has prepared for the son of my master. For in that place, where it says: The virgin who shall come out to draw water. In the Hebrew it is written ALMA, that is, a secret virgin, and kept with the excessive care of her parents.

Or else let them show me where married women are called by this word, and I will confess my ignorance. Behold a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and bear a son. If virginity is not preferred to marriage, why did the Holy Spirit not choose a married woman, why not a widow? For at that time there was Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser, of distinguished chastity, and always devoted to prayers and fastings in the temple of God. If conversation only, and good works and fastings without virginity, deserve the coming of the Holy Spirit to themselves, this woman too could have been the mother of the Lord. Let us hasten to the rest: She has despised thee, he says, and scorned thee, O virgin daughter of Sion. Whom he had called "daughter," he also called "virgin": lest, if he had named her only "daughter," you might think her married also.

This is the virgin daughter to whom elsewhere it is said: Rejoice, O barren one, that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou that travailest not, for the children of the desolate are many more than of her that has a husband. This is she of whom God speaks through Jeremiah, saying: Will a bride forget her ornament, or a virgin the fillet of her breast? Concerning this one there is in the same prophecy a great marvel, that a woman should encompass a man, and that the virgin's womb should enclose the parent of the universe.

"Grant," he says, "that the condition of marriage and of virginity be different; what can you say to this? If a virgin and a widow shall have been baptized, and shall have so remained, what difference will there be between the two?" What we said a little while ago about Peter and John, Anna and Mary, let it serve at the present point. For if between a baptized virgin and a baptized widow there is no difference, because baptism makes a new man, by the same reasoning harlots and prostitutes too, if they have been baptized, will be made equal to virgins. For if the widow's past marriage does no harm to her when baptized, then the past pleasures of harlots also, and bodies exposed to public lust, will after the washing obtain the rewards of virginity. It is one thing to join to God a mind most pure and unstained by any recollection, another to remember the embraces of a husband's foul necessity: and to feign in memory what you do not do in body.

Jeremiah, who was sanctified in the womb, and known in his mother's belly, enjoys this privilege for the reason that he was destined for the blessedness of virginity. And though all were taken captive, and even the vessels of the Temple were plundered by the Babylonian king in his devastation, this man alone is free from the enemy, and knows nothing of the injuries of captivity, and received wages from the conquerors, and Nebuzaradan, to whom Nebuchadnezzar had given no charge concerning the Holy of Holies, gave charge concerning Jeremiah. For this is the true Temple of God, and this the Holy of Holies, which are consecrated to the Lord by the purity of virginity. But on the other hand Ezekiel, who was held captive in Babylon, who had seen the storm coming from the north, and the whirlwind sweeping all away, says: My wife died at evening, and I did in the morning as had been commanded me.

For the Lord had foretold him that on that day his mouth would be opened, and he would speak, and be silent no more. Note carefully: as long as his wife lived, he did not have the freedom to admonish the people. His wife dies, and the marriage bond is loosed, and without any trepidation he is always in the office of prophecy. For he who was called free is truly the servant of Christ. I do not deny that widows are blessed, who so remain after baptism; nor do I detract from the merit of those who persevere in chastity with their husbands; but just as these are of greater reward with God than the married who serve the conjugal duty, so let them too bear it with an equal mind that virginity should be preferred to them. For if belated chastity, after the froth of bodily pleasures has been spent, raises them up above married women, why should they not know that they themselves stand below perpetual chastity?

“You speak these things in vain,” he says, “because both bishops and presbyters and deacons, husbands of one wife, and having children, are appointed by the Apostle.” In the same way that the Apostle says concerning virgins that he has no commandment, and yet gives counsel, as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord, and does this throughout that whole discussion, in order to prefer virginity to marriage, and urges what he does not dare to command, lest he seem to cast a snare, and to impose more weight than human nature can sustain: so also in establishing the ecclesiastical order, because the Church was being formed as yet untaught from among the Gentiles, he gives lighter precepts to those newly believing, lest, being terrified, they should be unable to bear them.

Finally the Apostles also and the elders from Jerusalem send letters, that no further burden be imposed upon those who have believed from among the Gentiles, except that they abstain from idolatry, and fornication, and from blood, and from things strangled; and, as it were to little ones and infants, they give milk to drink, not solid food: nor do they give commands concerning continence, nor do they signify anything about virginity, nor do they call to fastings, nor do they say that which is directed in the Gospel to the Apostles, that they should not have two tunics, nor a scrip, nor money in their belts, nor a staff in hand, nor shoes on their feet, or indeed that saying: If you wish to be perfect, go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and come, follow me.

For if that young man, who had boasted that he had done all things that are of the law, hearing this, went away sorrowful, because he had many possessions, and the Pharisees mocked at such a saying of the Lord: how much more did so great a multitude of the Gentiles, for whom the highest virtue was not to seize another’s goods, not have need of a precept concerning chastity and perpetual continence, to whom it was written that they should abstain from idols, and fornication, and among whom fornication was heard of, and such fornication as is not even found among the Gentiles! But the very election of a bishop also supports my case. For it does not say: Let a bishop be chosen who takes one wife, and begets children: but who has had one wife, and has children in complete subjection under all discipline. Surely you confess that one cannot be a bishop who begets children while in the episcopate.

Otherwise, if he should be discovered, he will not be held as a husband, but condemned as an adulterer. Either permit priests to perform the works of marriage, so that they may be virgins and husbands at the same time: or, if it is not lawful for priests to touch their wives, they are holy in this, because they imitate virginal purity. But this too must be brought forward. If a layman, and any believer whatsoever, cannot pray unless he abstains from the conjugal office, then the priest, for whom sacrifices must always be offered on behalf of the people, must always pray. If he must always pray, then he must always abstain from marriage. For even in the old law, those who offered sacrifices on behalf of the people were not only absent from their own houses, but were purified for a time, separated from their wives, and did not drink wine or strong drink, which are wont to provoke lust.

Husbands are chosen for the priesthood, I do not deny it: because there are not enough virgins to be as numerous as the priests who are needed. Is it because in an army the strongest of all must be chosen that therefore the weaker will not also be enlisted, since all cannot be strong? If an army consisted only of strength, and not also of the number of soldiers, the weaker would be cast aside. As it is, even those of second and third rank of strength are enlisted, so that the crowd and number of the army may be filled up. And how, you will say, does it often happen in priestly ordination that a virgin is passed over, and a married man chosen? Because perhaps he lacks other works befitting virginity, or he is thought a virgin and is not; or he is of ill repute regarding his virginity; or indeed his very virginity begets in him pride, and while he applauds himself for the mere chastity of the body, he neglects the other virtues.

He does not care for the poor: he is too fond of money. It sometimes happens that a gloomier countenance, a drawn brow, a gait like the pomp of processions in litters, offends the people, and because there is nothing to reprove in his life, they hate only his bearing and gait. Many are chosen not out of love for themselves, but out of hatred for another. In many cases sheer simplicity earns the vote, and is set against another’s prudence and cleverness as though it were malice.

Sometimes the judgment of the common people and the crowd goes astray, and in approving priests, each favors his own kind of character, so that he seeks a superior not so much good as like himself. It happens at times that married men, who are the greater part among the people, applaud married men as though applauding themselves, and think themselves not inferior to virgins in this, that they prefer a married man to a virgin. I will say something, perhaps to the offense of many; but the good will not be angry with me, because the conscience of sin will not gnaw at them. Sometimes this also happens through the fault of the bishops, who choose for the clergy not the better but the more clever, and think the simpler and more innocent unfit; or they bestow, as it were, offices of earthly service on relatives and kinsmen, or they obey the command of the rich. And, what is worse than this, they grant the rank of the clergy to those by whose flatteries they have been softened.

Otherwise, if according to the Apostle’s statement there will be no bishops except married men, the Apostle himself ought not to have been a bishop, who said: I would that all were as I myself am. And John will be judged unworthy of this rank, and all virgins, and all the continent, with whom, as with the fairest of jewels, the necklace of the Church is adorned. Bishop and presbyter and deacon are not names of merit, but of office. Nor is it said: If anyone desires the episcopate, he desires a good rank; but he desires a good work: so that, being established in a higher order, he may, if he wishes, have occasion for exercising the virtues.

The bishop must therefore be blameless, so that he is enslaved to no vice: a husband of one wife, one who has had one wife, not one who has one now: sober, or, as it is better expressed in the Greek, watchful, that is, νηφάλιον; modest—for this is what σώφρον signifies—adorned both in chastity and in manners; hospitable, that he may imitate Abraham, and, with strangers, or rather in strangers, receive Christ. A teacher: for it profits nothing to enjoy a conscience of virtues, unless he can also instruct the people entrusted to him, so as to be able to exhort by sound doctrine, and to refute those who contradict. Not given to wine, because he who is always in the Holy of Holies, and offers sacrifices, shall not drink wine or strong drink, because in wine is excess. Let the bishop drink in such a way that it is unknown whether he has drunk. Not a striker, that is, one who does not strike the consciences of individuals.

For the apostolic word does not describe a boxer, but establishes what a bishop ought not to do. It now teaches, on the other hand, what he should do. But moderate, not quarrelsome, not covetous; ruling his own house well, having children in subjection with all chastity. See how great a purity is required in a bishop, that if his children should be unchaste, he himself could not be a bishop, and he would offend God with the same fault by which Eli the priest offended, who indeed had rebuked his sons, but because he had not cast off the offenders, fell backward, and died, before the lamp of God was extinguished. Likewise women must be chaste, and so on. In every rank and sex, chastity holds the first place. You see, then, that a bishop, presbyter, and deacon are not blessed for this reason, that they are bishops, or presbyters, or deacons, but if they have the virtues of their names and offices.

Otherwise, if a deacon should be holier than his own bishop, he will not, because he is of lower rank, be inferior before Christ. Or shall Stephen the deacon, who was first crowned with martyrdom, be lesser in the kingdom of heaven than many bishops, and than Timothy and Titus, whom I dare neither to place beneath him, nor yet to set above him? Just as in legions and in an army there are commanders, there are tribunes, there are centurions, there are skirmishers and light-armed troops, and the common soldier, and the maniples: and when the battle has been joined, the names of ranks are set aside, and only valor is sought: so in this field and battle in which we fight against demons, names are not sought, but works; and more glorious under the true commander Christ is not he who is more noble, but he who is stronger.

We suffer a mutual ardor of ours. In the resurrection the substance will be the same. But you will say: If all become virgins, how will the human race stand? I will answer like with like. If all become widows, or continent within marriage, how will the stock of mortals be propagated? By this reasoning nothing at all will exist, lest something else cease to be. For example: if all were philosophers, there would be no farmers. Why should I speak of farmers? There would be no orators, no jurists, no teachers of the other arts. If all were princes, who would be a soldier? If all were the head, of what will they be called head, when the other members are lacking? You fear lest, if more should seek virginity, harlots should cease, adulteresses should cease, lest infants should not cry in cities and villas. Daily the blood of adulterers is shed, adulteries are condemned, and even amid the laws themselves and the axes and the tribunals, burning lust holds sway.

Do not fear lest all become virgins; virginity is a difficult thing, and therefore rare, because difficult: Many are called, few are chosen. To begin is the part of many, to persevere the part of few. Whence also great is the reward of those who persevere. If all could be virgins, the Lord would never have said: He who can accept this, let him accept it; nor would the Apostle have hesitated in his persuading: Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord.

And why, you will say, were the genitals created, and were we so fashioned by our most wise Maker, that we should suffer mutual ardor for one another, and be moved toward natural union? We are endangered by the modesty of our reply, and, as between two rocks, certain clashing Symplegades of necessity and modesty, we suffer shipwreck on this side or that, either of shame or of the case itself. If we answer the objections raised, we are overwhelmed with shame. If shame obtains silence, we shall seem to yield ground, and to give our adversary an occasion to strike. Yet it is better, as the saying goes, to fight like the Andabatae with closed eyes, than not to repel with the shield of truth the darts aimed straight at us.

I could indeed say: Just as the hinder part of the body, and the passage through which the waste of the bowels is discharged, has been removed from sight, and placed, as it were, behind the back, so also that part which is beneath the belly was formed by God for digesting the humors and drink by which the veins of the body are irrigated. But since the very organs and structure of the genitals, and the distinction between us and women, and the receptacles of the womb formed for receiving and nourishing offspring, proclaim the difference of sex, I will answer this briefly: Are we then never to cease from lust, lest we bear such members in vain? For why should a husband abstain from his wife? Why should a chaste widow persevere, if we were born for this only, that we should live after the manner of cattle? Or what harm will it do me if another man should sleep with my wife?

For just as it is the office of the teeth to chew, and to pass on to the belly what has been chewed, and he who has given bread to my wife commits no crime; so, if it is the office of the genitals always to enjoy their own nature, let another man’s vigor make up for my weariness, and let a chance lust, so to speak, quench my wife’s most burning appetite. But what does the Apostle mean by exhorting us to continence, if it is against nature? What does the Lord Himself mean, who prescribes the various kinds of eunuchs? Surely the Apostle, who calls us to his own chastity, ought steadily to hear the question: why do you bear the male member, O Paul? Why are you distinguished from the female sex by beard, by hair, and by the other qualities of your members? Why do your breasts not swell, your hips not broaden, your chest not narrow? Your voice is coarser, your speech more rugged, your brow more shaggy.

You have all these marks of manhood in vain, if you do not make use of the embrace of women. I am compelled to say something and to become foolish; but you have forced me to dare to speak. Our Lord and Savior, who, being in the form of God, deigned to take the form of a servant, made obedient to the Father even unto death, death even of the cross—what need was there for Him to be born with those members which He was not going to use? He indeed, in order to show His sex, was even circumcised. Why did He, out of His own love, make eunuchs of John the Apostle and the Baptist, whom He had caused to be born male? We, then, who believe in Christ, let us follow the example of Christ. And if we have known Him after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more.

Certainly at the resurrection the substance of our bodies will be the same as that which we now use, though its glory will be increased. For the Savior even had, after the underworld, that very body in which He was also crucified, so much so that He showed His hands pierced by the nails and the wound in His side. Moreover, if He entered when the doors were shut, which the nature of human bodies does not allow, then we must also deny that Peter and the Lord had true bodies, because they walked upon the waters, which is against nature. In the resurrection of the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be like the angels. What others are to be hereafter in heaven, virgins have already begun to be on earth.

If we are promised the likeness of angels (and among angels there is no difference of sex), then either we shall be without sex, as the angels are, or, what is certainly evident, though rising again in our own sex, we shall not perform the office of sex.

But why do we labor with arguments, and wish to overcome our adversary’s propositions with a clever reply? The old things have passed away, behold, all things are made new. Let me run through the sayings of the apostles, and just as in the examples of Solomon I appended brief explanations for ease of understanding, so now also I will set forth examples of Christian chastity and continence, and out of many testimonies make, as it were, one body, whereby I will both omit nothing pertaining to chastity, and avoid the tedium of excessive length. Among other things Paul the Apostle writes to the Romans: What fruit therefore had you then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. But now, being made free from sin, and become servants of God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end life everlasting. I suppose that the end of marriage also is death. But the fruit of sanctification, which pertains either to virginity or to continence, is weighed out as eternal life.

And further: Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the Law by the body of Christ, that you may belong to another, who is risen from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which were by the Law did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are loosed from the law of death, wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. When, he says, we were in the flesh, and not in newness of spirit, but in oldness of the letter, we did the things that belonged to the flesh, and brought forth fruit unto death. But now, because we are dead to the law, through the body of Christ, let us bring forth fruit to God, that we may belong to Him who rose from the dead.

And also in another place, when he had said beforehand, I know that the Law is spiritual; and when he had disputed at length concerning the violence of the flesh, that it frequently drives us to do what we do not will, he added at the end: Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And again, I myself therefore with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of sin. And, There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh. For the law of the spirit in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death.

And more plainly in what follows he teaches that Christians do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, saying: For they that are according to the flesh mind the things that are of the flesh; but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit. For the wisdom of the flesh is death; but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace: because the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God. For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. And they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you, and so on, down to that place where he says: Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, that we should live according to the flesh.

For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. If the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God, I judge that those who perform the marriage duty, in that they love the wisdom of the flesh, are in the flesh. From which the Apostle, drawing us back and joining us to the spirit, goes on to say: I beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the newness of your understanding, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God.

For I say, through the grace that is given to me, to all that are among you: not to be more wise than it behooves to be wise, but to be wise unto chastity (not unto sobriety, as is wrongly read in the Latin manuscripts), but to be wise, he says, unto chastity. For indeed in Greek it is written, εἰς τὸ σωφρονεῖν. Let us consider the Apostle’s meaning: Be reformed, he says, in the newness of your understanding, that you may prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. What he means is this: God indeed permits marriage, permits a second marriage, and, if it should be necessary, prefers even a third marriage to fornication and adultery. But we, who ought to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, our reasonable service, should consider not what God permits, but what He wills: that we may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Therefore what He permits is neither good, nor acceptable, nor perfect.

And he gives the reasons why he urges this: Knowing the time, that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is past, and the day is at hand. And at the end: Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its desires. The will of God is one thing, indulgence another. Whence also, writing to the Corinthians, he says: And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal; as unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat: for you were not able as yet; neither indeed are you now able. For you are yet carnal. He that is animal, and does not receive the things that are of the Spirit of God (for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually discerned)—such a one is fed not with the food of perfect chastity, but with the raw milk of marriage.

As by man came death, so by man came also the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. We have served under the old Adam in the old law: let us serve under the new Adam in the new gospel. For the first man Adam was made into a living soul, and the last Adam into a quickening spirit. The first man was of the earth, earthly. The second man was from heaven, heavenly. Such as is the earthy, such also are the earthy; and such as is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God: neither shall corruption possess incorruption. This is so clear that it could not be made plainer by any exposition: Flesh, he says, and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God, neither corruption incorruption.

If corruption pertains to every act of intercourse, but incorruption belongs properly to chastity, then marriages cannot possess the rewards of chastity. For we know that if our earthly house of this habitation be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven. For in this also we groan, desiring to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven. For we who are in this tabernacle groan, being burdened; because we wish not to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. We desire to go out of the body, and to dwell with Christ; wherefore also we labor most earnestly, that whether present in the body, or absent from the body, we may please God. And that he might more fully explain what he did not wish us to be, in another place he teaches, saying: For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

But if you wish to refer this to the whole Church of believers, and to understand that in this espousal to Christ are contained both the married, and those twice-married, and widows, and virgins, this too serves our purpose. For while he invites all to chastity and to the reward of virginity, he shows that virginity is superior to all the other ranks. And again, to the Galatians: By the works of the Law, he says, shall no flesh be justified. Marriages too are works of the law, whence also in the law those who have no children are cursed. But if these things are permitted even in the Gospel, it is one thing to grant indulgence to weakness, another to promise rewards to virtues.

I too will say to my newlywed friends, who after chastity and long continence rush back to intercourse, and wanton like cattle: Are you so foolish, that whereas you began in the spirit, you are now made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so much for nothing? That the Apostle loosens the knots of continence for some, and gives free rein to those running, he does this on account of the weakness of the flesh. Writing against this he says again: Walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfil the desire of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. It is not necessary now to speak of the works of the flesh, since it would be long, and whoever wishes may easily take them from the Apostle's Epistle. I will speak only of the spirit, whose fruits are charity, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, continence. Continence sustains and protects all the virtues of the spirit, as the firmest foundation and the lofty summit.

Against such there is no law. But they that are Christ's have crucified their flesh with the vices and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. We who have crucified with Christ our flesh, and its passions and desires, why do we again desire to do the things that belong to the flesh? Whatsoever a man shall sow, that shall he also reap. He that soweth in his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. I judge that he who has a wife, so long as he returns to the same act, lest Satan tempt him, sows in the flesh, and not in the spirit. But he who sows in the flesh (it is not I, but the Apostle who speaks) reaps corruption. God the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted before him.

We walked in the lusts of the flesh, doing the will thereof and of its thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But now he has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that we should put off, according to our former manner of life, the old man, which is corrupt according to the desires of error, and that there might fit us that blessing with which the mystical Epistle to the Ephesians concludes: Grace be with all them that love our Lord in incorruption. Our conversation is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transfigure the body of our humiliation, that it may be made conformable to the body of his glory. Whatsoever things, therefore, are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever pertains to chastity, let us cling to these, let us pursue these.

Christ has reconciled us in his body to God the Father through death, and has presented us holy, and unspotted, and without any reproach before him: in whom also we are circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in putting off the body of the flesh, but with the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which also we have risen again. If then we have risen with Christ, let us seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God; let us mind the things that are above, not the things upon the earth. For we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God. For when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then we also shall appear with him in glory No man serving as a soldier of God entangleth himself with secular affairs, that he may please him to whom he has approved himself.

For the grace of God our Saviour has appeared to all men, instructing us, that denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this present world.

The day would fail me, were I to wish to recall all the precepts of chastity from the Apostle. These are the things of which the Lord spoke to the Apostles: I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. After the cross of Christ, straightway in the Acts of the Apostles, one house, that of Philip the Evangelist, produces a team of four virgin daughters: so that Caesarea, in which the Church from the Gentiles had been dedicated through the centurion Cornelius, might also furnish examples of virgin maidens. And whereas the Lord in the Gospel said: The Law and the Prophets were until John, these women, because they were virgins, are recorded to have prophesied even after John. For they who had shone with the brightness of virginity could not be held by the law of the old Testament.

Let us pass to James, who was called the brother of the Lord, of such holiness, such justice, and perpetual virginity, that Josephus also, the historian of the Jews, relates that Jerusalem was overthrown on account of his murder. He, the first bishop from among the Jews of the believing Church of Jerusalem, to whom Paul went along with Titus and Barnabas, speaks in his Epistle: Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no difference, nor shadow of turning. Willingly has he begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be the firstfruits of his creatures. The virgin mystically teaches virginity. Every perfect gift comes down from above, where there are no marriages: and it comes down not from just anyone, but from the Father of lights, who says to the Apostles: You are the light of the world.

With whom there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, nor does that shadow which prevailed in the Law weigh upon those who have believed from among the nations: but he has begotten us by the word, and of truth: because shadow, and image, and a certain likeness of the truth preceded in the Law, that we might be the firstfruits of his creatures. And as he himself, the firstborn from the dead, raised up in himself all the dead: so he himself, a virgin, dedicated in himself, a virgin, the firstfruits of his virgins. Let us also consider what Peter felt concerning the calling of the Gentiles: Blessed, he says, be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has regenerated us unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven, for you who by the power of God are kept through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

Where an incorrupt inheritance is proclaimed, and undefiled, and unfading, and prepared in heaven, and reserved for the last time, and a hope of eternal life, when they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, there in other words the privileges of virginity are described. For in what follows he also teaches this very thing: Wherefore, girding up the loins of your mind, being sober, hope perfectly for that grace which is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As children of obedience, do not conform yourselves to the former desires of your ignorance; but according to him who has called you, who is holy, be ye also holy in all your conversation. For it is written: Be ye holy, because I am holy.

For you were not redeemed with corruptible gold or silver, but with the precious blood of the unspotted lamb Jesus Christ, that we might purify our souls in obedience to the truth, being born again not of corruptible seed, but of that which is incorruptible, by the word of the living God and abiding forever; and as living stones let us be built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices, through Christ our Lord. For we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of acquisition. Christ died for us in the flesh. Let us arm ourselves with the same mind wherewith Christ armed himself, since he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so that no longer in the desires of men, but in the will of God, we might spend the rest of our time in the flesh. For it is enough for us that we have spent the time past, when we walked in luxuries and desires and other vices.

He has given us great and precious promises of virginity, that through this we might be made partakers of the divine nature, fleeing that concupiscence of corruption which is in the world. The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished, especially those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise dominion, being bold and self-willed. For these, like irrational beasts, are prone to the belly and to lust, blaspheming, who shall perish in their own corruption, and shall receive the reward of iniquity, luxury: who count it pleasure to indulge in filthiness for a day, spots and blemishes, thinking of nothing but pleasures. Who have eyes full of adultery and insatiable lust, and beguile souls not yet strengthened by the love of Christ. For they speak swelling words, and easily ensnare the unlearned by the allurements of the flesh: promising them liberty, while they themselves are the servants of vice and of luxury and corruption.

For of whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the servant. For if, having escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of our Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in the same, and overcome, their latter end has become worse for them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn back, and to leave the holy commandment which was delivered to them. And that most true proverb has been fulfilled in them: The dog is returned to his own vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. I have not wished to set down the whole of the second Epistle of Peter, lest I make it too long, but only to show that by the prophecy of the Holy Spirit both the teachers and the heresy of this time were foretold.

Finally he marks the same men more plainly, saying: For there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own desires, and so forth.

The Apostolic discourse has described Jovinian speaking with puffed-up cheeks and weighing out swollen words, promising liberty in heaven, while he himself is the servant of vices and luxury, a dog returning to his own vomit. For although he boasts himself to be a monk, and from a sordid tunic and bare feet, and coarse bread, and a drink of water, he betakes himself to white garments, and sleek skin, and delicacies, and elaborately prepared meats, to the sauces of Apicius and Paxamus, and also to baths and little cutlets, and cookshops, it is plain that he prefers earth to heaven, vices to virtues, the belly to Christ, and thinks the purple of its color to be the kingdom of heaven. And yet this handsome monk, fat, sleek, whitened, and always stepping forth as if he were a bridegroom, let him either take a wife, that he may prove marriage equal to virginity: or if he has not taken one, he argues against us in vain with words, since in deed he is with us.

But John also agrees with the same words: Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but of the world. And, The world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that doth the will of God abideth for ever. I write unto you a new commandment, which is most true, both in Christ, and in us: because the darkness has passed, and the true light now shineth. And again: Beloved, now we are 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 to him: because we shall see him as he is. And every one that hath this hope purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

In this our love is made perfect, if we have confidence in the day of judgment; that as he is, so we also may be in this world. The Epistle of Jude also signifies something like this: Hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Let us read the Apocalypse of John, and there we shall find the Lamb upon mount Sion, and with him a hundred forty-four thousand who were sealed, having his name, and the name of his Father written on their foreheads, who sing a new Canticle, and no man could say that Canticle, but they who were purchased from the earth. These are they who were not defiled with women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wheresoever he goeth: for they were purchased from among men, the firstfruits unto God and the Lamb, and in their mouth was found no lie, and they are without spot.

Of each tribe, except the tribe of Dan, in whose place is set the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand sealed virgins are said to be believers, who were not defiled with women. And lest we should think this said of those who merely have known no harlots, he immediately added: For they remained virgins. By which he shows that all who did not remain virgins are, in comparison with that most pure and angelic chastity, and with that of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, defiled. These are they who sing the New Song, which no one can sing save he who is a virgin. These are the firstfruits of God and of the Lamb, and without spot. If virgins are the firstfruits of God, then widows and those continent in marriage will come after the firstfruits, that is, in the second and third rank: nor can a people already lost be saved, unless it offer to God such sacrificial victims of chastity, and reconcile the spotless Lamb with the purest offerings.

It would be endless to expound the mystery of the Gospel of the ten virgins, the five foolish and the five wise. This only I now say, that just as virginity alone, without other works, does not save, so all works, without virginity, purity, continence, chastity, are imperfect. From which that objection which our adversary raises can in no way hinder us—that the Lord was at Cana of Galilee, and celebrated the feast of a wedding, when he turned water into wine. To this I will answer most briefly: that he who was circumcised on the eighth day, and for whom, on the day of purification, a turtledove and two young pigeons were offered along with the rest, before he could act otherwise, approved the Jewish custom, lest he seem to give them occasion justly to kill him, as one destroying the Law and condemning nature. And yet this too is in our favor. For he who came once to a wedding, taught but once that marriage was permissible.

And this could indeed be prejudicial to virginity, if we did not place marriage after virginity, and the chastity of widowhood not in the third rank. But now, since it belongs to heretics to condemn marriages and despise God's ordinance, whatever he has said in praise of marriage we gladly hear. For the Church does not condemn marriage, but subordinates it; does not reject it, but regulates it: knowing, as we said above, that in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of clay: and some unto honor, others unto dishonor: and that whoever shall have cleansed himself shall be a vessel unto honor, prepared and useful for every good work.

Abundantly and sufficiently have we furnished examples of Christian modesty and angelic virginity from the divine Scriptures. But since I have understood, from the adversary's commentaries, that we are being challenged also on the ground of worldly wisdom—that this kind of life was never approved in the world, and that our religion has brought forth a new doctrine contrary to nature—I shall briefly run through Greek, Latin, and barbarian histories, and show that virginity has always held the primacy of chastity. Legends relate that Atalanta, the Calydonian virgin, loved always the hunt, always the woods, not the swelling wombs of women nor the disgust of conceptions, but an unencumbered and chaste excellence. Harpalyce too, the Thracian virgin, an eminent Poet describes; and Camilla, queen of the Volsci, whom Turnus, wishing to praise since she had come to his aid, had nothing more to say than to call her a virgin: "O glory of Italy, virgin".

Chalcioecus's daughter Leo too, a perpetual virgin, is recorded to have freed her homeland from plague by a voluntary death; and the blood of the virgin Iphigenia is said to have appeased contrary winds. Why should I mention the Erythraean and Cumaean Sibyls, and the eight others—for Varro reckons there were ten—whose distinguishing mark is virginity, and whose reward for virginity is divination? And if in the Aeolic form of speech the Sibyl is called Theoboulē, rightly is virginity alone said to know the counsel of God. We read also of Cassandra and Chryseis, prophetesses of Apollo, and virgins of Juno. And priestesses of the Taurian Diana, and of Vesta, have existed without number. One of these, Minutia, on suspicion of unchastity, was buried alive—an unjust penalty, I think, unless violated virginity be reckoned a grave crime.

Certainly how greatly the Roman people always honored virgins appears from this, that consuls and emperors, and those triumphing in their chariots who brought back trophies from conquered nations, and every rank of dignity, were accustomed to give way to them on the road. Claudia, a Vestal virgin, when she had come under suspicion of unchastity, and the image of the Idaean Mother had stuck fast in a shallow of the Tiber, is said, to prove her chastity, to have drawn with her girdle the ship which many thousands of men had been unable to move. Yet better, says the uncle of the poet Lucan, would it have been for her, if that which happened had been rather the ornament of a proven chastity, than the vindication of a doubtful one. Nor is this strange concerning humans, since the error of the Gentiles also fashioned Minerva and Diana as virgin goddesses, and among the twelve signs of heaven, by which they think the world revolves, placed the Virgin.

Great is the wrong done to marriage, that not even among the scorpions and centaurs and crabs and fishes and goats did they crowd together wife and husband. The Thirty Tyrants of Athens, when they had killed Phido at a banquet, ordered his virgin daughters to come to them, and to be stripped naked after the manner of harlots, and to sport with wanton gestures upon the pavement stained with their father's blood: who, dissembling their grief for a little while, when they saw their fellow-banqueters drunken, going out as if to answer the needs of nature, embraced one another and threw themselves into a well, that they might preserve their virginity by death. The virgin daughter of Demotion, chief of the Areopagites, on hearing of the death of her betrothed Leosthenes, who had stirred up the Lamian war, killed herself: declaring that although she was untouched in body, yet if she were compelled to accept another, it would be as though she accepted a second husband, since she had already wedded the first in mind.

The Spartans and the Messenians long maintained friendship with one another, to such a degree that for certain sacred rites they even sent virgins mutually to each other. On a certain occasion, then, when the Messenians attempted to violate fifty virgins of the Lacedaemonians, out of so great a number not one consented to the outrage, but all most willingly died for their chastity. On this account a grave and very long war was stirred up, and after much time Mamertia was overthrown. Aristoclides, tyrant of Orchomenus, fell in love with a Stymphalian virgin, who, when her father had been killed, fled to the temple of Diana, and clung to the statue, and could not be torn away by force, and was there stabbed to death on that very spot. On account of her murder all Arcadia was so moved with grief that it publicly took up war, and avenged the virgin's death.

Aristomenes the Messenian, a most just man, when he had defeated the Lacedaemonians, and on a certain occasion when they were celebrating nocturnal rites called the Hyacinthia, snatched fifteen virgins from the dancing choruses, and fleeing all night at a swift pace, departed out of the borders of the Spartans. And when his companions wished to violate them, he warned them as much as he could not to do this, and at last killed some who would not obey, the rest being restrained by fear. The girls, afterward ransomed by their kinsfolk, when they saw Aristomenes made liable to a charge of murder, did not return to their homeland until they saw the defender of their chastity acquitted at the knees of the judges. With what mouth should not the daughters of Scedasus at Leuctra in Boeotia be praised, who, it is recorded, in their father's absence, received into hospitality by the law of guest-friendship two passing young men. These, indulging much in wine, forced the virgins during the night.

The girls, unwilling to survive the loss of their chastity, fell by mutual wounds upon one another. It is right also not to pass over in silence the Locrian virgins, who, when sent to Ilium according to custom for about a thousand years, gave rise to no tale of scandalous rumor or violated virginity. Who could pass over in silence the seven Milesian virgins, who, when the onslaught of the Gauls was laying everything waste, fled disgrace by death rather than endure anything unseemly from the enemy, leaving to all virgins the example of themselves, that to honorable minds chastity is a greater care than life. Nicanor, when Thebes had been conquered and overthrown, was overcome by love for a single captive virgin. Seeking her in marriage, and her willing embraces—which a captive ought indeed to have desired—he perceived that to chaste minds virginity is worth more than a kingdom; and when she had been slain by her own hand, he, weeping and mourning, held her as her lover.

Greek writers relate also of another Theban virgin, whom a Macedonian enemy had violated, that she dissembled her grief for a little while, and afterward slew the violator of her virginity while he slept, and killed herself with the sword, so that she wished neither to live after her chastity was lost, nor to die before she had become her own avenger.

Among the Gymnosophists of India, as it were by hand-to-hand tradition, the authority of this opinion is handed down, that a virgin bore Buddha, the founder of their teaching, from her side. Nor is this strange concerning barbarians, since most learned Greece also fashioned Minerva from the head of Jupiter, and Father Liber from his thigh. Speusippus too, son of Plato's sister, and Clearchus in his eulogy of Plato, and Anaxilides in the second book of his Philosophy, report that Perictione, Plato's mother, was overcome by a phantom of Apollo, and they think that the prince of wisdom was brought forth in no other way than by the childbearing of a virgin. But Timaeus also writes that Pythagoras's virgin daughter presided over a chorus of virgins, and instructed them in the teachings of chastity. Diodorus the Socratic is recorded to have had five daughters, dialecticians of eminent chastity, of whom Philo also, the teacher of Carneades, writes a most complete history.

And lest Roman power should reproach us for the Lord and Savior being begotten of a virgin, the founders of that city and nation themselves are believed to have been begotten of the virgin Ilia and Mars.

Let this discourse, running through manifold histories and hastening on, touch briefly upon the virgins of the world. I shall come now to married women, who, when their husbands had died or been slain, refused to survive them, lest they be compelled to know a second embrace, and who wondrously loved but a single husband; that we may know that even among the Gentiles a second marriage was disapproved. Dido, sister of Pygmalion, having gathered a great weight of gold and silver, sailed to Africa, and there founded the city of Carthage; and when she was sought in marriage by Iarbas, king of Libya, she put off the wedding for a while, until she should found the city. And not long after, having built a pyre in memory of her former husband Sychaeus, she chose rather to burn than to marry. A chaste woman founded Carthage, and that same city again ended in the glory of chastity.

For the wife of Hasdrubal, when the city had been captured and set on fire, seeing that she was about to be taken by the Romans, seized her little sons by either hand, and flung herself down into the fire beneath her burning house.

Why should I speak of the wife of Niceratus, who, unable to endure the insult of her husband, took her own life, rather than submit to the lust of the Thirty Tyrants, whom Lysander had set over the conquered Athenians? Artemisia too, the wife of Mausolus, is reported to have been of notable chastity. She, being queen of Caria, and celebrated with the praises of noble poets and historians, is extolled above all for this, that she loved her deceased husband ever as though he lived, and built a tomb of wondrous magnitude, so great that even to this day all costly tombs are called Mausolea after her husband's name. Teuta, queen of the Illyrians, in order that for so long a time she should rule over most brave men, and often crush the Romans, surely earned this by the miracle of her chastity. The Indians, as almost all barbarians, have very many wives. Among them there is a law that the dearest wife should be burned along with her deceased husband.

These, therefore, contend among themselves for love of the husband; and the greatest ambition of the rivals, and the proof of their chastity, is to be judged worthy of death. And so the victor, in her former attire and adornment, lies down beside the corpse, embracing and kissing it, and despises the fire set beneath her for the glory of chastity. I think that she who thus dies seeks no second marriage. That famous Alcibiades, the disciple of Socrates, when the Athenians had been conquered, fled to Pharnabazus. He, having received payment from Lysander, chief of the Lacedaemonians, ordered him to be killed. And when, having been suffocated, his head was cut off and sent to Lysander as proof that the murder had been carried out, the rest of his body lay unburied. His concubine alone, then, against the command of a most cruel enemy, among strangers, and with danger threatening, performed the due funeral rites, ready to die for the dead man whom, living, she had loved.

Let matrons—let Christian matrons at least—imitate the fidelity of a concubine, and let free women render what a captive preserved.

Strato, a petty king, wishing to stab himself with his own hand with a Sinodian sword, lest he become a laughingstock to the Persians who threatened him—whose treaty he had disregarded through alliance with the Egyptian king—was held back by fear, and, gazing upon the sword he had seized, awaited in dread the coming of the enemy. His wife, perceiving that he was on the very point of being captured, wrested the scimitar from his hand and pierced his side with it. And having laid out the corpse according to custom, she cast herself upon it as she died, lest, after her maiden vows, she should endure the embrace of another. Xenophon, in the childhood of the elder Cyrus, writes that when Abradates her husband had been killed, whom his wife Panthea had loved with wondrous devotion, she laid herself beside his mangled body, and, having pierced her own breast, poured her blood into her husband’s wounds. A wife judged it just cause for killing her king, whom her husband had shown naked, unknowing, to his friend.

For she judged that she was not loved, who could be shown to another. Rhodogune, daughter of Darius, after the death of her husband, killed the nurse who was urging her toward a second marriage. The tales tell that Alcestis died willingly in place of Admetus; and the chastity of Penelope is Homer’s song. Laodamia, too, is sung by the mouths of poets, who, when Protesilaus was slain at Troy, refused to survive him.

Let me pass to the Roman women; and I shall set first Lucretia, who, unwilling to survive the violation of her chastity, wiped out the stain of her body with her blood. Duillius, who was the first at Rome to triumph in a naval battle, took to wife the maiden Bilia, of such great chastity that even in that age she was held up as an example, in an age when unchastity was a monstrosity, not merely a vice. He, now an old man with trembling body, in the course of some quarrel heard it cast up against him that his breath was foul, and went home sorrowful. And when he complained to his wife as to why she had never warned him, so that he might remedy this fault, she said: I would have done so, had I not thought that all men’s mouths smelled thus.

She is to be praised on both counts, a chaste and noble woman—whether she was ignorant of her husband’s fault, or bore it patiently; and it is to be noted that the husband perceived the misfortune of his own body not from his wife’s distaste but from an enemy’s reproach. Certainly a woman who takes a second husband cannot say this. Marcia, the younger daughter of Cato, when asked why, after losing her husband, she did not marry again, replied that she could not find a man who wanted her more than he wanted her possessions. By this saying she showed that wealth is usually chosen in wives more than chastity, and that many men marry wives not with their eyes but with their fingers. Truly an excellent thing, which avarice procures! The same woman, when she was mourning her husband, and matrons asked her what day would be the last of her mourning, said: The same day as of my life.

I think that she who so sought her absent husband was not thinking of a second marriage. Brutus took Porcia, a virgin, to wife: Cato took Marcia, not a virgin; but Marcia passed back and forth between Hortensius and Cato, and Marcia could live without Cato: Porcia could not live without Brutus. For women attach themselves more to husbands who are their only one; and to know nothing else is a great bond of closer devotion. When a kinsman advised Annia to marry another husband (for she still had her full youth, and a good countenance), she said: By no means will I do this. For if I find a good husband, I do not wish to fear losing him; if a bad one, what need is there, after a good one, to endure the worst? When the younger Porcia heard praised in her presence a certain well-behaved woman who had a second husband, she replied: A happy and chaste matron marries but once, never more.

The elder Marcella, when asked by her mother whether she was glad she had married, replied: So much so, that I wish for no more. Valeria, sister of the Messalas, after losing her husband Servius, wished to marry no one. When asked why she did so, she said that her husband Servius was ever alive to her.

I perceive that in my catalogue of women I have said much more than the custom of giving examples allows, and that I may justly be reproved by the learned reader. But what am I to do, when the women of our time hurl the Apostle’s authority at me, and, before the funeral of a former husband has even been carried out, recite by heart the precepts of second marriage? So that those who despise the faith of Christian chastity may at least learn chastity from the pagans. There is said to be a golden little book of Theophrastus, On Marriage, in which he inquires whether a wise man should take a wife. And when he had determined that, if she were beautiful, of good character, of honorable parents, and he himself healthy and rich, a wise man might sometimes enter into marriage, he immediately added: But these things rarely all agree together in marriages. Therefore a wife is not to be taken by the wise man.

For in the first place, the pursuits of philosophy are impeded; nor can anyone equally serve books and a wife. There are many things necessary for the needs of matrons—costly garments, gold, jewels, expenses, maidservants, various furnishings, litters, and gilded chariots. Then there are whole nights of garrulous complaints: That woman goes forth more adorned in public; this one is honored by all, while I, poor wretch, am despised in the gathering of women. Why were you looking at the neighbor woman? What were you saying to the maidservant? What did you bring back from the forum? We cannot have a friend, a companion. She suspects that another’s love is her own hatred. If the most learned teacher should be in any city whatsoever, we can neither leave our wife, nor go with our baggage. To support a poor wife is difficult; to endure a rich one is torment. Add to this, that there is no choice of a wife, but whatever one falls to us, we must keep her.

If she is quick-tempered, if foolish, if deformed, if proud, if malodorous—whatever the fault is, we learn it only after marriage. A horse, an ass, an ox, a dog, and the meanest slaves, garments too, and cauldrons, a wooden seat, a cup, and an earthen pitcher, are tested before they are bought: only a wife is not shown beforehand, lest she displease before she is married. Her face must always be watched, and her beauty praised: lest, if you look at another woman, she think herself displeasing. She must be called mistress, her birthday celebrated, one must swear by her health, and it must be wished that she outlive you; her nurse must be honored, and her attendant, the slave who was her sponsor at birth, and her foster-child, and the handsome attendant, and the curled steward, and the eunuch cut off for long and safe lust: under which names adulterers lie hidden. Whomever she has loved, they must be loved by us too, unwillingly.

If you entrust the whole management of the household to her, you must be her servant. If you reserve anything to your own judgment, she will think that no trust is placed in her; but it will turn to hatred and quarrels, and unless you take quick counsel, she will prepare poisons. If you let in old women, and soothsayers, and diviners, and hawkers of jewels and silk garments, it is a danger to chastity; if you forbid them, it is an injury of suspicion. But indeed what does even careful guarding profit, since an unchaste wife cannot be kept safe, and a chaste one ought not to be? For necessity is an unfaithful guardian of chastity; and she alone is truly to be called chaste, who was free to sin if she wished. A beautiful woman is soon loved; an ugly one easily lusts. What many love is hard to guard. It is troublesome to possess what no one thinks worth having. Yet the deformed woman is kept with less misery than the beautiful one is guarded.

Nothing is safe, toward which the wishes of an entire populace sigh. One man is enticed by beauty, another by wit, another by pleasantries, another by generosity. In some way, or at some time, that which is assailed from every side is overcome. But if wives are taken for the sake of managing the household, and for solace in sickness, and to flee solitude: a faithful slave manages far better, obedient to his master’s authority and complying with his arrangement, than a wife, who thinks herself mistress in this, if she acts against her husband’s will—that is, does what pleases her, not what is commanded. Moreover, friends and household slaves bound by favors can sit by the sick more readily than she who charges us with her tears, and sells the filth of her mourning in hope of an inheritance, and, parading her anxiety, disturbs the sick man’s spirit with despair. But if she herself should fall ill, one must fall ill along with her, and never withdraw from her bedside.

Or if she is a good and pleasant wife (which, however, is a rare bird), we groan with her in labor, we are tormented when she is in danger. But the wise man can never be alone. He has with him all who are, and all who ever have been, good men, and he transfers his free mind wherever he wishes. What he cannot do with his body, he embraces in thought. And if there is a lack of men, he speaks with God. He will never be less alone than when he is alone. Furthermore, to take a wife for the sake of children, so that either our name may not perish, or that we may have supports for old age, and make use of certain heirs, is utterly foolish. For what does it matter to us, once we depart from the world, if another be named by our name: since not even a son immediately bears his father’s title, and there are countless people who are called by the same name?

Or what supports for old age are these, to rear at home one who may perhaps die before you, or be of the most perverse character? Or surely, when he has come to mature age, you will seem to him to die too slowly? But better and more certain heirs are friends and kinsmen, whom you choose by judgment, than those whom, whether you will or not, you are compelled to have. Though the inheritance be more certain; still, while you live, it is better to use your substance well, than to leave what was gained by your own labor to uncertain uses. »

These and such things Theophrastus discusses—whom of Christians would it not cover with shame, whose conversation is in the heavens, who daily say: I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ? Shall the co-heir of Christ indeed long for an heir who is a man? Shall he wish for children, and delight in a succession of grandchildren, whom perhaps Antichrist is destined to seize; when we read that Moses and Samuel preferred other men to their own sons, and did not consider them children whom they saw displeasing to the Lord? Cicero, when asked by Hirtius, after his divorce from Terentia, to marry his sister, altogether refused to do so, saying that he could not devote himself equally to a wife and to philosophy. Meanwhile that excellent wife, who had drawn wisdom from the very fountains of Tully, married Sallust, his enemy, and thirdly Messala Corvinus, and rolled, as it were, down through certain degrees of eloquence. Socrates had two wives, Xanthippe and Myrto, granddaughter of Aristides.

These, quarreling frequently with each other, and he being accustomed to laugh at them because they disputed over him—a most hideous man, with flat nostrils, a bald and receding forehead, hairy shoulders, and bandy legs—at last turned their attack upon him, and having thoroughly drubbed him, pursued him for a long time as he fled. But on a certain occasion, when he had withstood the endless abuse Xanthippe poured down upon him from above, and was drenched with foul water, he made no other reply than, wiping his head: I knew, said he, that such thunder would be followed by rain. Sulla’s wife—Felix’s, that is, had he not had a wife—Metella, was openly unchaste; and (since we are the last to learn of our own misfortunes) this was sung at Athens while Sulla knew nothing, and he first learned the secrets of his own house from the taunts of his enemies.

As for Gnaeus Pompey, that his wife Mutia was unchaste, courted by the eunuchs of Pontus and the bands of Mithridates, though everyone else thought he knowingly tolerated it, a fellow-soldier revealed to him on campaign, and dismayed the conqueror of the whole world with the sad news. Marcus Cato the Censor had for wife Atoria Paula, a woman of humble birth, given to wine, uncontrolled, and (what no one could believe) haughty even toward Cato. I say this so that no one may think, if he marries a poor woman, that he has thereby sufficiently provided for harmony. King Philip of Macedon, against whom the Philippics of Demosthenes thunder, was shut out by his angry wife when, as was his custom, he was entering the bedchamber; and being shut out, he said nothing, but consoled his injury with a tragic verse. Gorgias the rhetorician recited at Olympia, before the Greeks then at odds among themselves, a most beautiful book on concord.

To whom Melanthius, his enemy, said: This man instructs us about concord, who could not make himself, his wife, and his maidservant agree together, three persons in one house. For his wife was jealous of the beauty of the little maidservant, and harassed her most chaste husband with daily quarrels. The whole of Euripides’ tragedies are curses against women. Whence also Hermione says: The counsels of wicked women deceived me. In the half-barbarous city of Leptis, situated in the wilderness, it is the custom that a daughter-in-law on the next day ask her mother-in-law for the loan of a pot. To whom the latter at once refuses—so that you may know that saying of Terence to be true, which he deliberately uttered ambiguously: What is this? All mothers-in-law hate their daughters-in-law.

We read of a certain Roman nobleman who, when his friends took him to task for having divorced a wife who was beautiful, chaste, and rich, stretched out his foot and said to them: This shoe too, which you see, seems to you new and elegant; but no one knows besides me where it pinches. Herodotus writes that a woman, when she lays aside her garment, lays aside her modesty as well. And our own comic poet of Cos deems him fortunate who has never taken a wife. Why should I mention Pasiphaë, Clytemnestra, and Eriphyle: of whom the first, steeped in luxury as the wife of a king, is said to have desired intercourse with a bull; the second killed her husband for love of an adulterer; the third betrayed Amphiaraus, preferring a golden necklace to her husband’s safety. Whatever the tragedies swell with, whatever overturns houses, cities, and kingdoms, is the strife of wives and mistresses.

The hands of parents are armed against their children; unspeakable banquets are served up; and for the abduction of one wretched little woman, Europe and Asia clash in a ten-year war. We read of certain women who, having been divorced, married again the very next day of the wedding. Both husbands are to be blamed—the one whom she displeased so quickly, and the one whom she pleased so quickly. Epicurus, the champion of pleasure (although his disciple Metrodorus had Leontium as wife), says that the wise man should rarely enter into marriage, because many inconveniences are mingled with wedlock. And just as riches, honors, bodily health, and the other things we call indifferent are neither good nor bad, but placed as it were in the middle, becoming good or bad by use and outcome, so also wives are situated on the border between good and evil things. It is a grave matter, moreover, for a wise man to come into doubt whether he is going to marry a good or a bad woman.

Ridiculously Chrysippus prescribes that the wise man should marry, lest he offend Jove Gamelius and Genethlius. For in that fashion, among the Latins, no one ought to marry, since they have no Jove of Marriage. But if, as he thinks, the names of the gods have jurisdiction over the lives of men, then he will offend Jove Stator, if he ever willingly sits down.

Aristotle and Plutarch and our own Seneca wrote books on marriage, from which both some of the foregoing sayings are drawn, and also these which we now subjoin: Love of beauty is forgetfulness of reason, and neighbor to madness—a foul vice, and one least fitting to a sound mind. It disturbs counsels, breaks lofty and noble spirits, drags them down from great thoughts to the most abject; it makes men, in the end, querulous, irascible, rash, harshly domineering, servilely fawning, useless to all, and at last hateful even to love itself. For when it burns with insatiable desire for enjoyment, it wastes most of its time in suspicions, tears, and complaints; it breeds hatred of self, and in the end the man becomes hateful even to himself. The whole pursuit of love is set forth in Plato; and all its inconveniences are explained by Lysias, namely, that it is led not by judgment but by frenzy: and especially that the most grievous guardian lies in wait beside the beauty of wives.

Seneca relates further that he knew a certain elegant man who, when about to go out in public, would bind his wife’s breast with a band, and could not bear her absence even for the space of a moment; and husband and wife would drink no draught except one touched alternately by both their lips; doing other things besides no less foolish, into which the improvident force of burning affection burst forth. The origin of the love, indeed, was honorable, but its excess was deformed. It matters nothing, however, from how honorable a cause one goes mad. Whence also Xystus says in his sentences: He is an adulterer, he says, who loves his own wife too ardently. For in another man’s wife all love is base, in one’s own it is excessive. The wise man ought to love his wife with judgment, not with passion. Let him govern the impulses of pleasure, nor be borne headlong into intercourse. Nothing is more foul than to love one’s wife as though she were an adulteress.

Certainly those who say that they join themselves to wives and beget children for the sake of the republic and of the human race, should at least imitate the beasts, and, once their wives’ wombs have swollen, should not destroy their offspring; nor should they show themselves as lovers to their wives, but as husbands. Some marriages have clung together through adultery: and, monstrous thing, the very men who took away chastity had first taught it to those women. And so satiety quickly dissolves marriages of this sort. As soon as the first enticement of lust has departed, what once delighted grows worthless. For what, says Seneca, shall I say of poor men, a great part of whom are hired under the name of husband, to elude the laws passed against the unmarried? How can he who has himself married govern morals and prescribe chastity, and maintain a husband’s authority? It is the saying of a most learned man, that chastity is above all to be preserved, and that with its loss, all virtue collapses.

In this lies the primacy among womanly virtues. This ennobles the poor woman, exalts the rich, redeems the ugly, adorns the beautiful: it deserves well of ancestors, whose blood it does not corrupt with stolen offspring; well of children, who need not blush for their mother, nor be in doubt about their father; well, above all, of the woman herself, whom it vindicates from the disgrace of a body given over to another. There is no greater calamity of captivity than to be dragged to satisfy another’s lust. Consulships make men illustrious; eloquence raises their name to eternity; military glory and the triumph over a new nation consecrate them. There are many things which ennoble outstanding talents. The virtue of a woman, properly, is chastity. This made Lucretia equal to Brutus—one cannot tell whether it did not even set her above him, since Brutus learned from a woman not to be able to endure slavery. This made Cornelia equal to Gracchus; this made Portia equal to the second Brutus. Tanaquil is better known than her own husband.

Him antiquity has already hidden among the many names of kings; her the rare virtue among women has fixed more deeply in the memory of all ages than that it could ever be effaced. Let marriages, then, imitate Theano, Cleobulina, Gorgo, Timoclea, the Claudias, and the Cornelias; and when they see the Apostle pardoning a second marriage to wicked women, let them read that, before our religion shone forth in the world, it was ever the glory among matrons to have had but one husband; that to such women alone the rites of Woman’s Fortune were wont to be performed; that no priest was twice-married, no Flamen twice-wed; that the Hierophants of the Athenians, even to this day, are made eunuchs by drinking hemlock, and, once admitted into the priesthood, cease to be men.

The second proposition is, that those who have been baptized cannot be tempted by the devil. And lest this should seem said foolishly, he added: Whoever have been tempted, are thereby shown to have been baptized with water only, and not with the Spirit—as we read concerning Simon Magus. Whence also John says: Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin, because his seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. And in this the children of God are made manifest, and the children of the devil. And at the end of the Epistle: Whosoever is born of God does not sin; but the begetting of God preserves him, and the evil one does not touch him.

Truly a strong objection, and one which would remain unresolved, were it not resolved by the testimony of John himself. For immediately he added: Little children, keep yourselves from idols. If everyone who is born of God does not sin, and cannot be tempted by the devil, how does he charge them to beware lest they be tempted? And again in the same Epistle: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. I judge that John, being baptized, wrote to the baptized, and that every sin is of the devil. He confesses himself a sinner, and hopes for the remission, after baptism, of sins: and my Jovinian says, Do not touch me, for I am clean. What then? Does the Apostle speak things contrary to himself?

By no means. For in the very same place he immediately explains why he said this: My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. But if anyone should sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just; and he is the propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the whole world's. And in this we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments. He who says he knows him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly in him is the love of God perfected. In this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk as he walked.

Therefore, he says, I write to you, my little children: Everyone who is born of God does not sin—this he says so that you may not sin, and that you may know yourselves to remain in the Lord's generation only so long as you have not sinned. Nay rather, those who persevere in the Lord's generation cannot sin. For what fellowship has light with darkness? Christ with Belial? As day and night cannot mingle, so neither can righteousness and iniquity, sin and good works, Christ and Antichrist. If we have received Christ into the lodging of our breast, we straightway put the devil to flight. If we sin, and the devil has entered through the door of sin, Christ will immediately withdraw. Whence also David, after his sin: Restore to me, he says, the joy of your salvation—namely, that which he had lost by sinning. He who says he knows him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and in this the truth is not.

Christ is called the truth: I am, he says, the way and the life and the truth. In vain do we congratulate ourselves in him, whose commandments we do not do. To him who knows the good and does not do it, it is sin. As the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. Nor let us think it a great thing to know the one God, since even the demons believe and tremble. Let our adversary choose which of two he will; we give him the choice. Does he abide in Christ, or does he not abide? If he abides, then let him so walk as Christ walked. But if it is rash to promise a likeness of virtues to the Lord's, he does not abide in Christ, because he does not walk as Christ walked.

He committed no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, and as a lamb before its shearer so opened not his mouth: to whom the prince of this world came, and found nothing in him: who, though he had not committed sin, God made him to be sin for us. But we, according to the Epistle of James, all sin in many things, and no one is clean from sins, not even if his life were but one day: For who will boast that he has a pure heart? Or who will trust that he is clean from sins? And we are held guilty in the likeness of Adam's transgression. Whence also David: Behold, he says, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother conceived me. And blessed Job: If I be righteous, my mouth will speak wickedness; and if blameless, I shall be found perverse.

And though I be purified with snow and washed with clean hands, you have dipped me enough in filth, and my own garment has abhorred me. But lest we utterly despair, thinking that after the sins of baptism we cannot be saved, he immediately tempers this very statement: And if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just, and he is the propitiation for our sins. This he speaks to believers after baptism, and promises the Lord as advocate for their offenses. Nor does he say: If you should sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Christ, and he is the propitiation for your sins—lest you should say that they had not attained baptism with full faith: but, We have an advocate, he says, with the Father, Jesus Christ, and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not only for John's sins and theirs, but also for the whole world's. But in the whole world are also the Apostles and all believers.

From which it is clearly proved that one can sin after baptism. For in vain do we have Jesus Christ as advocate, if it is not possible to sin.

Peter the Apostle, to whom it had been said: He who is washed does not need to wash again; and, You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church: terrified by a maidservant, denies. And the Lord himself says: Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to have you, that he might sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail. And in the same place: Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. If you should answer that this was said before the cross, certainly after the cross, in the Lord's Prayer, we say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. If we do not sin after baptism, why do we ask that our sins be forgiven us, which have already been forgiven in baptism?

Why do we pray that we may not enter into temptation, and that we may be delivered from evil, if the devil can no longer tempt the already baptized? But it is a different matter if this prayer pertains to catechumens, and does not befit the faithful and Christians. Paul, the vessel of election, chastises his own body, and brings it into subjection, lest, preaching to others, he himself be found reprobate: And there was given to me, he says, a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. And to the Corinthians: I fear, he says, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. And elsewhere: To whom you have forgiven anything, I also. For what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ, that we be not overreached by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his devices.

And again: Let no temptation take hold of you but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above that which you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. And, Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. And to the Galatians: You did run well; who hindered you, that you should not obey the truth? And elsewhere: We wished to come to you; I indeed, Paul, both once and again, but Satan hindered us. And to husbands: And return again to the same thing, lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency. And again: I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the desires of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other, so that you do not the things that you would.

Being composed of both, it is necessary that we suffer the wars of both natures against one another. And to the Ephesians: We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this darkness, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

And does anyone suppose that we ought to be secure and asleep after baptism? Nor does the Epistle to the Hebrews say otherwise: For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God nonetheless, and the powers of the age to come, and have fallen away, to be renewed again to repentance, crucifying to themselves again the Son of God, and holding him up to open shame. Certainly those who were enlightened, and tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, we cannot deny were baptized. But if the baptized cannot sin, how does the Apostle now say, And have fallen away?

But lest Montanus and Novatus should here laugh, who contend that those who have crucified to themselves the Son of God and held him up to open shame cannot be renewed through repentance, he consequently resolves this error, and says: But we are confident of better things concerning you, beloved, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. For God is not unjust, that he should forget your work and labor, which you have shown in his name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister. And truly it would be great injustice of God, if he should only punish sins, and not receive good works. I have spoken thus, says the Apostle, so that I might draw you back from sins, and by the fear of despair make you more cautious. But for the rest, I am confident of you, beloved, of better things and things nearer to salvation.

For it is not of God's justice that he should forget good works, and the ministry which you have shown and do show to the saints for his name's sake, and remember only sins. But also the apostle James, knowing that the baptized can be tempted, and can fall by their own will, says: Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been proved, he shall receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. And lest we should think, according to that passage in Genesis where it is written that Abraham was tempted by God, that we too are tempted by God: Let no one, he says, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is untempted by evils, and himself tempts no one. But everyone is tempted, being drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence. Then concupiscence, when it has conceived, brings forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.

God made us of free will; we are drawn neither to virtues nor to vices by necessity. Otherwise, where there is necessity, there is no crown either. Just as in good works God is the perfecter, so in evil works he is not the one who comes to aid. For it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy and helpeth, that we may be able to attain to the goal: so also in evils and sins, our own seeds are the incitements, but the perfecting is of the devil. When he has seen us building upon the foundation of Christ hay, wood, stubble, then he applies the fire. Let us therefore build gold, silver, precious stones, and he will not dare to tempt us: although even in this there is no certain and secure possession. For the lion lies in wait and in hidden places, that he may slay the innocent. And the furnace tries the vessels of the potter, but tribulation tries just men.

And elsewhere it is written: Son, when thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation. Again the same James says: Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only. If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. He beheld it, and went his way, and straightway forgot what manner of man he was. In vain would he have admonished them to join works to faith, if after baptism they could not sin. Whosoever, he says, shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all. Who among us is without sin? God hath concluded all under sin, that he might have mercy upon all. Peter also says: The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation. And of false teachers: These are wells without water, and clouds tossed with storms, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved.

For speaking great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped, and are turned again into error. Does it not seem to you that the apostolic word has painted a new faction of ignorance? For they open, as it were, fountains of knowledge, because, though they have it not, they promise a shower of doctrines, like prophetic clouds, to which the truth of God might come, yet they are driven by the whirlwinds of demons and vices. They speak great things, and their whole speech is pride: But every one that exalteth his heart is unclean before God. So that they who had a little escaped from sins return to their own error; and they persuade to luxury, to the delights of foods and of the flesh. For who would not gladly hear: Let us eat and drink, for we shall reign forever? They call the wise and prudent perverse; but those who are sweet in speech, they hear the more.

John the Apostle, nay rather the Savior in John, writing to the angel of the church of Ephesus, says: I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and that thou hast borne for my name's sake, and hast not fainted: but I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first charity. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent; and do the first works. But if not, I will come to thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent. Likewise he calls the other churches also, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, to repentance, and threatens them unless they return to their former works. And of Sardis he says he has a few who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with him in white, because they are worthy. But to another he says: Remember from whence thou art fallen. And, Behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried.

And, I know where thou dwellest, where Satan's seat is. And, Hold fast that which thou hast received and heard, and keep it, and repent; and the rest, he says surely to one who has believed and been baptized, and who once standing, has fallen through sin.

For a little while I had put off examples from the Old Testament; because they are wont, wherever it works against them, to say, The law and the prophets were until John. But who does not know that under the other dispensation of God, all the saints of old were of the same merit as Christians now are? As before Abraham it was pleasing to be in marriage, so now virgins are pleasing in perpetual chastity. He served the law and his own time; let us too serve the Gospel and our own time, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. David, chosen according to the heart of the Lord, who had done all his will, and who in a certain Psalm had said: Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine innocence: I have trusted also in the Lord; therefore I shall not slide.

Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart, afterward is tempted by the devil, and after sin, repenting, says: Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy great mercy. A great sin wishes to be blotted out by great mercy. Solomon, beloved of the Lord, and to whom God had twice been revealed, because he was a lover of women, departed from the love of God. Manasses, most impious king, the Book of Days records was restored after the Babylonian captivity to his former dignity. And Josiah, a holy man, is pierced through in the field of Megiddo by the king of Egypt. Jesus also the son of Josedech, the high priest, although in type he foreshadowed the Savior, who bore our sins, and joined to himself a church of strangers from the nations, yet according to the letter is brought in filthy after the priesthood, and the devil stands at his right hand; and white garments are afterward restored to him.

It is superfluous to write of Moses and Aaron, that at the water of contradiction they offended God, and did not enter the land of promise: since blessed Job also records that angels and every creature can sin, saying: What then, shall mortal man be more just than God? Or shall a man be more pure than his maker? Behold, he putteth no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly: how much more them that dwell in houses of clay, of which clay we also are made! The life of man upon earth is a temptation. And Lucifer fell, who used to send to all the nations. And he who was nourished among the twelve stones in the paradise of delights, wounded from the mountain of the Lord, descended to the depths. Whence also the Savior in the Gospel says: I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. If that highest sublimity fell, who could not fall? If there was ruin in heaven, how much more on earth?

And yet though Lucifer fell (or rather, after his fall, the ancient serpent), his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; he sleepeth under the reed and the flags. He is the king over all that are in the waters: namely, over pleasure and luxury, and propagation, and the watering of marriages. Who shall discover the face of his garment? Who shall come within the doors of his face? Nations feast upon him, and the peoples of the Phoenicians divide him among themselves. And lest by chance the silent thought of the reader should suppose that only the nations of the Phoenicians and the peoples of the Ethiopians are signified, to whom the dragon has been given as food, immediately it is said of those who pass over the sea of this age, and hasten to reach the harbor of salvation: And in the ships of fishermen his head stands like an anvil unwearied: he esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.

All the gold of the sea is under him as mire. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he counteth the sea like a pot of ointment, and the deep abyss as a prisoner. He beholdeth all high things (end; and 41:5). And my friend Jovinian thinks that he can easily overcome him. Why should I speak of holy men and of angels, who, since they are creatures of God, can surely receive sin? He dared to tempt the Son of God, and struck back by his first and second answer, nevertheless he lifts his head again, and wounded a third time, withdraws for a season, rather postponing than removing his temptation: and we flatter ourselves about baptism, which, as it remits former sins, so cannot preserve us for the future, unless those baptized keep their heart with all watchfulness.

At length we come to foods, and the difficulty of a third question is set against us: that all things were created for this purpose, that they might serve the use of mortals. And just as man, a rational animal, as it were a certain inhabitant and possessor of the world, is subject to God, and venerates his own Author, so all living creatures were created either for the food of men, or for clothing, or for tilling the earth, or for the transport of crops, or for the service of man himself: whence also beasts of burden (jumenta) are so called from the fact that they help (juvent). What is man, says David, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, and hast set him over the works of thy hands.

Thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, moreover the beasts of the field also, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, that pass through the paths of the sea. Granted, he says, that the ox was made for ploughing, the horse for riding, the dog for guarding, the goats for milk, the sheep for wool. What use is there of swine, apart from the eating of their flesh? What of the roe, the fawn, the doe, the boar, the hare, and hunting of this sort? What of wild and domestic geese? What of ducks, what of fig-peckers? What of the heath-cock? What of the coot? What of the thrush? Why does the hen run about in houses? If these are not eaten, all these things were created by God in vain.

But what need is there of arguments, when Scripture teaches most plainly that everything that moveth, like the herbs of the field, is given us for food: and the Apostle cries out: All things are clean to the clean, and nothing is to be refused, which is received with thanksgiving: and that there shall come in the last days those who forbid to marry, and to eat meats, which God created to be used. The Lord himself is called by the Pharisees a winebibber and a glutton, and a friend of publicans and sinners: not refusing the dinner of Zacchaeus, going to the feast of marriage. Furthermore, it is another thing, if by foolish contention you say that he went to dinner intending to fast, and said, after the manner of impostors: This I eat, that I do not eat: I will not drink wine, which I created from water. In the type of his blood he offered not water, but wine. After the resurrection he ate fish and honeycomb, not sesame, nuts, and little sops.

Peter the Apostle does not wait for a star after the Jewish manner, but at the sixth hour goes up to the housetop to dine. Paul in the ship breaks bread, not dried figs. To Timothy, suffering in his stomach, he counsels the drinking of wine, not of pear-juice. They please themselves with abstinence from foods, as though the superstition of the Gentiles too did not observe the fast of the Mother of the Gods and of Isis.

I shall follow, then, the footsteps of the proposition set forth: and before I come to the Scriptures, and show from them what fasting is pleasing to God, and what continence is acceptable, I shall match the arguments of the philosophers with arguments; and I shall prove that we do not follow the dogma of Empedocles and Pythagoras, who, on account of μετεμψύχωσιν (transmigration of souls), think that nothing which moves and lives should be eaten, and consider those guilty of the same crime who have cut down a fir or an oak, of which they are parricides and poisoners: but that we venerate our Creator, who made all things for the use of man. And just as the ox was made for ploughing, the horse for riding, dogs for guarding, goats for milk, sheep for wool: so were pigs and stags and roe-deer and hares and the rest; but these were not created immediately for eating, but for other uses of man.

For if everything that moves and lives was made for eating, and prepared for the gullet, let them answer me why elephants, why lions, bears, leopards, wolves; why vipers, scorpions, bedbugs, gnats, fleas; why the vulture, the eagle, the crow, the hawk; why whales, dolphins, seals, and tiny snails were created? Which of us has ever eaten a lion, which a viper, which a vulture, which a stork, which a kite, which the little worms crawling on the shores? Just as these, therefore, have their own proper uses, so we can say that the other beasts, fish, birds too were created not for eating, but for medicine. Finally, physicians know for how many purposes the flesh of the viper, from which theriac is made, is suited. Shavings of ivory are taken up for various remedies. The gall of the hyena restores clarity to the eyes, and its dung, and that of dogs, cures putrid wounds. And (which perhaps will seem strange to the reader) Galen teaches, in his work "On Simples," how many cures human dung effects.

Physicians say that the skin of a snake, which it sheds, boiled in oil, wonderfully soothes earache. What seems as useless to those who do not know as bedbugs? If a leech has stuck in the throat, upon inhaling its smoke it is at once vomited up; and difficulty of urination is relieved by its application. Moreover, what benefit the fats of pigs, geese, hens, and pheasants have, all the books of physicians declare; if you read them, you will see that there are as many cures in the vulture as there are members. Peacock dung soothes the heat of gout. Cranes, storks, eagle's gall, hawk's blood, the ostrich, frogs, chameleons, the dung and flesh of the swallow—for what diseases they are suited I would tell, if it were my purpose to discuss the healing of bodies.

Let him who wishes read Aristotle and Theophrastus in prose, Marcellus of Side, and our own Flavius, discoursing in hexameter verses; also Pliny the Second, and Dioscorides, and the rest, both natural philosophers and physicians, who refer no herb, no stone, no animal—whether creeping, flying, or swimming—to anything other than the utility of their art. So when you say to me, "Why was the pig created?" I shall answer you at once, in the manner of boys contending, "Why the vipers, why the scorpions?" Nor will you judge God to be the maker of superfluous things, because there are very many beasts and birds which your throat refuses.

But lest this seem contentious and combative rather than true, hear therefore that pigs, and boars, and stags, and the other living creatures were created that soldiers, athletes, sailors, orators, miners of metals, and others devoted to hard labor, might have foods for which bodily strength is necessary—those who carry arms and provisions; who in mutual boxing and kicking weaken each other's limbs; who pull at oars, whose flanks must be strong for shouting and speaking; who overturn mountains, and sleep under clear skies and in rainstorms. But our Religion instructs not the boxer, not the athlete, not sailors, not soldiers, not diggers, but a follower of wisdom, one who has dedicated himself to the worship of God: and who knows why he was created, why he is engaged in the world, to what he hastens to depart. Whence also the Apostle says: "When I am weak, then am I strong". And: "Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day". And: "I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ".

And: "Make no provision for the flesh in the lusts thereof". Is it commanded to all not to have two tunics, not to carry food in a bag, money in a belt, a staff in the hand, shoes on the feet? That they sell all that they possess, and give to the poor, and follow Jesus?

But this indeed is for those who wish to be perfect. Otherwise, one thing is prescribed by John the Baptist to soldiers, another to publicans. But the Lord says in the Gospel to him who had boasted that he had fulfilled all the law: "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow me". Lest he seem to impose a heavy burden on one unwilling, he left it to the hearer's own will, saying: "If thou wilt be perfect." Wherefore I too shall say to you: If you wish to be perfect, it is good not to drink wine and not to eat meat. If you wish to be perfect, it is better to fatten the soul than the body. But if you are a little one, and the laws of the cooks delight you, no one snatches the tasty dishes from your jaws. Eat and drink, and if it pleases you, rise up with Israel to play, and sing: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die".

Let him eat and drink who expects annihilation after his meals; who says with Epicurus: After death there is nothing, and death itself is nothing. We believe Paul thundering: "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them".

These few things from the Scriptures we have set down, to show that our teachings agree with the philosophers. But who does not know that each nation is accustomed to eat, not by a common law of nature, but by those things of which it has abundance among itself? For example, the Arabs and Saracens, and all the barbarism of the desert, live on the milk and flesh of camels; because an animal of this kind, on account of the climate and barrenness of the region, is easily both born and nourished among them. These consider it unlawful to eat the flesh of pigs. For pigs, which are usually fed on acorns, chestnuts, fern roots, and barley, are either rarely found among them, or not found at all; and if they were found, they would not have the food we mentioned above. On the other hand, the northern peoples, if you compel them to eat asses and camels, will think it like being forced to eat the flesh of a wolf or a crow.

In Pontus and Phrygia, the head of a household demands as a great source of income the white, fat worms with little black heads that are born in rotting wood. And just as among us the francolin and the fig-pecker, but not the parrot-fish, are counted among delicacies: so among them it is luxury to have eaten the ξυλοφάγον (wood-eater). Again, the peoples of the East and Libya, because through the desert and the hot waste of the wilderness clouds of locusts are found, are accustomed to eat locusts. That this is true, John the Baptist also proves. Compel a Phrygian or a Pontic man to eat a locust, and he will think it unlawful. Force a Syrian, an African, and an Arab to swallow the worms of Pontus, and they will despise them just as much as flies, millipedes, and lizards. Although the Syrians and Africans are accustomed to eat land crocodiles, and even green lizards.

In Egypt and Palestine, on account of the scarcity of cattle, no one eats cow's meat, but they take into their food the flesh of bulls and oxen and calves. But in our province they consider it a crime to devour calves. Whence also the Emperor Valens recently gave a law throughout the East, that no one should eat the flesh of calves, providing for the utility of agriculture, and correcting the very bad custom of the Judaizing populace, who instead of fattened poultry and sucklings, consume calves. The Nomads, and the Troglodytes, and the Scythians, and the new savagery of the Huns, eat half-raw flesh. Moreover, the Fish-eaters, a people wandering on the shore of the Red Sea, roast fish on rocks made hot by the sun's heat, and live on this food alone. The Sarmatians, the Quadi, the Vandals, and countless other nations, delight in the flesh of horses and foxes.

What shall I say of the other nations, when I myself, as a young man, saw in Gaul that the Atticoti, a British people, eat human flesh: and when they find in the woods herds of pigs, and cattle, and flocks, they are accustomed to cut off the buttocks of the herdsmen and the breasts of the women, and to consider these alone the delicacies of food? The Scottish nation does not have wives of its own; and as if it had read Plato's "Republic," and followed the example of Cato, no wife among them belongs to one man, but as each has pleased, they wanton like cattle. The Persians, Medes, Indians, and Ethiopians, kingdoms not small, and equal to the Roman kingdom, are joined with their mothers and grandmothers, with their daughters and granddaughters. The Massagetae and the Derbices consider most wretched those who die of illness; and when their parents, relatives, and kin come to old age, they slaughter and devour them: judging it better that they be eaten by themselves rather than by worms.

The Tibareni hang on gibbets those whom they have loved, in old age. The Hyrcanians throw the half-alive to birds and dogs; the Caspians throw the dead to the same beasts. The Scythians bury alive with the bones of the dead those who were loved by the deceased. The Bactrians throw old men to dogs raised for this very purpose. When Stasanor, Alexander's prefect, wished to correct this, he nearly lost the province. Compel an Egyptian to feed on sheep's milk; urge, if you can, a Pelusian to eat onion. Almost every single city in Egypt venerates its own single beast or monster: and whatever they have worshiped, they consider this inviolable and sacred. Whence also cities among them are named from the names of animals: Leonto, Cyno, Lyco, Busiris, Thmuis, which is interpreted "goat." And so that we might know what kind of gods Egypt has always received, recently, by the beloved of Hadrian, one of their cities was named Antinous.

You see, then, that not only in eating, but also in burials, and in marriages, and in every way of life, each nation lives by its own rite and its own peculiarities: and considers this the law of nature, whatever it has learned. But grant that the eating of meat is common to all nations; and that it is everywhere permitted, what is everywhere produced. What is that to us, whose conversation is in heaven; who, above Pythagoras and Empedocles, and all followers of wisdom, do not owe ourselves to him to whom we were born, but to him to whom we are reborn: who subjugate by fasting the flesh that resists and snatches at the incitements of lust? The eating of meat, and the drinking of wine, and fullness of the belly, is the seedbed of lust. Whence also the Comic poet says: "Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus grows cold."

Through the five senses, as through certain windows, is the entrance of vices to the soul. The metropolis and citadel of the mind cannot be captured, unless the hostile army rushes in through its gates. By the disturbances of these the soul is weighed down, and is captured by sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. If someone is delighted by the Circus games; if by the contest of athletes; if by the agility of actors; if by the forms of women; by the splendor of gems, of garments, of metals, and other things of this kind—through the windows of the eyes the freedom of the soul is captured, and that prophetic word is fulfilled: "Death has entered through your windows". Again, hearing is soothed by the varied music of instruments, and by the inflections of voices; and by the songs of poets and by the wit and stratagems of comedies and mimes, whatever, entering through the ears, unmans the virility of the mind.

Moreover, the sweetness of odor, and various incense, and amomum, and cyphi, oenanthe, musk, and the pelt of the foreign mouse—that this suits the dissolute and lovers, no one but the dissolute denies. Furthermore, who does not know that the greed for food is the mother of avarice, and holds the mind, weighed down as if by certain fetters, on the earth? On account of the brief pleasure of the throat, lands and seas are scoured; and that sweetened wine and costly food may pass through our throats, we sweat at the labors of our whole life. But touch, and the more ardent appetite for women's bodies, is close to madness. On account of this sense, we desire, we grow angry, we are excited, we envy, we are jealous, we are anxious, and when pleasure is satisfied, through a certain repentance, we are inflamed again; and we seek to do what, when we have done it, we again repent.

Therefore, when through these gates, as certain wedges of disturbances, they have entered the citadel of our mind, where will its freedom be, where its strength, where the thought of God—especially when a happy man paints for himself even past pleasures, and by the memory of vices compels the soul to feel as if compassionately, and in a certain way to practice what it does not do?

Enticed then by these reasons, many of the philosophers abandoned the crowds of cities, and the suburban gardens, where there is a well-watered field, and the foliage of trees, and the whispering of birds, the mirror of a spring, a murmuring stream, and many enticements of eyes and ears: lest through luxury and abundance of resources the strength of the soul should grow soft, and its chastity be defiled. For it is useless (dangerous and harmful) to look frequently upon those things by which you have once been captured, and to entrust yourself to the experience of things which you can hardly do without. For even the Pythagoreans, avoiding this sort of throng, were accustomed to dwell in solitude and in deserted places. The Platonists too and the Stoics used to spend their time in the groves and porticoes of temples, so that, admonished by the sanctity of a narrower dwelling, they might think of nothing but virtues.

But Plato himself also, though he was rich, and Diogenes with muddied feet trampled upon his couches, in order that he might have leisure for philosophy, chose the Academy, a villa far from the city, not only deserted but even pestilential: so that by the care and constant occurrence of illnesses the impulse of lust might be broken; and his disciples might feel no other pleasure than that of the things which they were learning. We read that certain men gouged out their own eyes, lest through their sight they should be called away from the contemplation of philosophy. Whence also that famous Crates the Theban, having cast into the sea no small weight of gold, said, "Go to the bottom, evil desires: I will drown you, lest I myself be drowned by you." But if anyone supposes that he can both enjoy an abundance of foods and drinks, and yet have leisure for wisdom—that is, both live amid delicacies and not be held fast by the vices of delicacies—he deceives himself.

For since, even when far removed from these things, we are often captured by the enticements of nature, and are compelled to desire things of which we have no abundance; how much more, if surrounded by the nets of pleasures, should we think ourselves free! Our sense dwells upon that which it sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches, and is drawn to the desire of that thing by whose pleasure it is captivated. It is an old saying too, that the mind sees, and the mind hears; and that we cannot hear or see anything unless the sense is intent upon those things which we perceive and hear.

It is difficult, nay impossible, for those who abound in delicacies and pleasures, not to think upon the things which they are doing: and in vain do some pretend that, with faith, chastity, and integrity of mind kept intact, they make use of pleasures, since it is contrary to nature to enjoy an abundance of pleasures without pleasure: and the Apostle, guarding against this very thing, said: "But she that liveth in pleasures is dead while she liveth".

The senses of bodies are like horses, running without reason, but the soul, like a charioteer, holds the reins of those running. And just as horses without a driver rush headlong, so the body without the reason and command of the soul is carried to its own destruction. Another comparison of soul and body is also set forth by the philosophers, who say that the body is a boy, and the soul a tutor. Whence also the Historian says: "We make more use of the soul's command, of the body's service. The one we have in common with the gods, the other with the beasts." Therefore, unless the vices of the youth and the boy are governed by the prudence of the tutor, all his effort and impulse hasten toward wantonness. We can live without four of the senses, that is, without sight, hearing, smell, and touch. But without taste and food it is impossible for the human body to subsist.

Reason, then, ought to be present, so that we take such and so much food as does not burden the body, nor weigh down the freedom of the soul; because one must eat, and walk, and sleep, and digest, and afterward, with the veins swollen, endure the incitements of lusts. "Wine is a luxurious thing, and drunkenness is riotous". Whoever is mixed up with these will not be wise. Nor should we take such foods as we either digest with difficulty, or grieve, once eaten, that they were obtained and lost with great labor. The preparation of vegetables, fruits, and pulses is both easier, and does not require the skill and expense of cooks: and it sustains the human body without trouble, and, taken moderately (because it is not devoured greedily, since it has no incitements of the palate), is digested with an easier digestion.

For no one is burdened to the point of a swollen belly by one or two foods, and those cheap ones, a thing which is desired through the variety of meats and the delight of flavor. When dishes steam with various odors, having satisfied hunger, they draw men, as it were captives, to eating of themselves. Whence also diseases are stirred up from excessive satiety; and many remedy the intemperance of gluttony by vomiting, and what they shamefully took in, they more shamefully expelled.

Hippocrates teaches in his Aphorisms that gross and fat bodies, which have completed the measure of growth, unless they are quickly reduced by the removal of blood, break out into paralysis and the worst kinds of diseases; and that a reduction is therefore necessary, so that they may again have room in which to grow. For the nature of bodies does not remain in one state, but either always grows or diminishes, nor can an animal live unless it is capable of growth. Whence also Galen, that most learned man, interpreter of Hippocrates, says in his Exhortation to Medicine that athletes, whose life and art is stuffing, can neither live long, nor be healthy: and that their souls, wrapped as it were in mud by excessive blood and fat, think of nothing subtle, nothing heavenly, but always of meats, and belching, and the gluttony of the belly.

Diogenes asserts that tyrannies and the overthrow of cities, and wars whether foreign or civil, are stirred up not for a simple diet of vegetables and fruits, but for meats and the delicacies of banquets. And, what is to be marveled at, Epicurus, the champion of pleasure, filled all his books with vegetables and fruits, and says that one must live on cheap foods; because meats and exquisite banquets are prepared with immense care and misery, and involve a greater pain in the seeking than pleasure in the enjoying. But our bodies need only food and drink. Where there is water and bread, and other things like these, there nature is satisfied. Whatever is beyond this pertains not to the necessity of life, but to the vice of pleasure. To drink and to eat is not to quench the ardor of delicacies, but thirst and hunger. Those who feed on meats also need those things which are not of meats. But those who make do with a simple diet do not require meats.

We cannot devote our effort to wisdom either, if we are thinking of an abundant table, which requires excessive labor and care. The necessity of nature is quickly satisfied: cold and hunger can be driven off by simple clothing and food. Whence also the Apostle says: "Having food and clothing, let us be content with these". Delicacies and the varieties of banquets are the fuel of avarice. It is a great exultation of the soul, when, being content with little, you have the world beneath your feet, and all its power, banquets, lusts, for the sake of which riches are amassed, exchanged for cheap food, and compensated with a coarser tunic. Take away the luxury of banquets and lust, and no one will seek riches, whose use is either in the belly, or beneath the belly. He who is sick does not otherwise regain health, except by thin food and a restrained diet, which is called λεπτή δίαιτα (a slender diet).

By whatever foods, then, health is regained, by these it can also be preserved; lest anyone think that diseases are stirred up by vegetables. But if vegetables do not supply the strength of that famous Milo of Croton, which is born and nourished from meats: what need is there for the wise man and philosopher of Christ to have such strength as is necessary for athletes and soldiers, which, once he has it, provokes him to vices? Let those think meats suited to health who wish to indulge lust, and, plunged in the filth of pleasures, are always inflamed toward intercourse. For the Christian, health without excessive strength is necessary. Nor should it disturb us, if the followers of this way of life are rare; because good and faithful friends are rare, and the chaste and continent are rare, and virtue is always rare. Read of the continence of Fabricius, the poverty of Curius, and in so great a city you will scarcely find a few whom you might follow.

Do not fear that, if you do not eat meat, fowlers and hunters will have learned their arts in vain.

We read that certain men, suffering from arthritic disease and the humors of gout, and proscribed from honors, reduced to a simple table and poor fare, recovered. For they were freed from the anxiety of managing a household, and from the lavishness of banquets, which break both body and soul. Horace mocks the appetite for foods, which, once consumed, leave behind repentance:

Despise pleasures; pleasure bought with pain does harm.

And when in a most pleasant field he described himself, fat and sleek, to the mockery of pleasure-loving men, he jested in these verses:

Fat and sleek, with well-tended skin, you will see me,
Whenever you wish to laugh, a hog from Epicurus's herd.

But satiety must be avoided even from the cheapest foods. For nothing so overwhelms the mind as a belly full and seething, turning itself this way and that, and breathing out with a discharge of belches or of the winds of flatulence. What a fast is that, or what a refreshment after a fast, when we are distended with the previous day's banquets, and our throat becomes a rehearsal-hall of latrines? And while we wish to seek a reputation for a rather prolonged fasting, we devour so much that scarcely the night of another day can digest it. Therefore it is not so much to be called a fast, as a debauch, and a foul and troublesome digestion.

Dicaearchus, in his books of Antiquities and Description of Greece, reports that under Saturn, that is, in the golden age, when the earth poured forth everything, no one ate meats, but all lived on grains and fruits, which the earth produced of its own accord. Xenophon relates the life of Cyrus, king of the Persians, in eight volumes, asserting that they lived on barley-meal, cress, salt, and coarse bread. Of the frugality of the tables of the Lacedaemonians, both the aforementioned Xenophon and Theophrastus, and almost all the writers of Greece, are witnesses.

Chaeremon the Stoic, a most eloquent man, relates concerning the life of the ancient priests of Egypt, that, having set aside all the business and cares of the world, they were always in the temple; and contemplated the natures of things, and the causes and reasons of the stars; that they never had intercourse with women; that they never saw their kinsmen and relatives, not even their children, from the time they began to devote themselves to divine worship; that they always abstained from meats and wine, on account of the subtlety of sense and the dizziness of the head which they suffered from scanty food: and especially on account of the appetites of lust, which are born from these foods and from this drink. They rarely partook of bread, lest they burden the stomach. And if ever they ate it, they took toasted hyssop together with it in their food, so as to boil down that heavier fare with its heat.

They knew oil only in vegetables, and even that but little, for the sake of soothing nausea and the harshness of taste. What shall I say, he says, of fowl, since they avoided even eggs in place of meats, and milk? Of which they said the one was liquid flesh, the other blood, its color changed. Their bed was woven of the leaves of palms, which they call baiae: they placed under the head, as a pillow, a stool inclined and sloping to one side, upon the ground, enduring a fast of two or three days. The humors of the body, which arise from idleness and from remaining in one place, they dried up by excessive restriction of diet.

Josephus, in the second book of his History of the Jewish Captivity, and in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, and in the two volumes against Apion, describes three sects of the Jews: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes. Of these he extols the last with wondrous praises, because they always abstained from wives and wine and meats, and turned daily fasting into a second nature. Concerning whose life Philo also, a most learned man, published a work of his own. Neanthes of Cyzicus, and Asclepiades of Cyprus, at the time when Pygmalion reigned in the East, write that the eating of meat did not exist. Eubulus too, who set forth the history of Mithras in many volumes, relates that among the Persians there were three kinds of Magi, of whom the first, who are the most learned and most eloquent, take nothing more in food than flour and vegetables. Among the Eleusinians too it is customary to abstain even from birds and fish, and certain fruits.

Bardesanes, a Babylonian man, divides the Gymnosophists among the Indians into two schools: one of which he calls the Brahmans; the other the Samanaeans: who are of such continence that they are nourished either by the fruits of trees near the river Ganges, or by common food of rice or meal: and when the king comes to them, he is accustomed to worship them, and to consider the peace of his province as resting upon their prayers. Euripides relates that in Crete the prophets of Jove abstained not only from meats, but even from cooked foods. Xenocrates the Philosopher writes concerning the laws of Triptolemus among the Athenians, that only three precepts remain in the temple of Eleusis: to honor parents, to venerate the gods, and not to eat flesh. Orpheus in his poem utterly detests the eating of flesh. I would relate the frugality of Pythagoras, of Socrates, of Antisthenes, and the rest, to our confusion: were it not both long, and a matter requiring its own proper work.

There indeed is that Antisthenes, who, when he had gloriously taught rhetoric, and had heard Socrates, is said to have said to his own disciples: Go, and seek a master, for I have already found one. And immediately, having sold what he had, and distributed it publicly, he kept for himself nothing more than a little cloak. Of his poverty and toil both Xenophon is witness in the Symposium, and his countless books: some of which he wrote in the philosophical, others in the rhetorical manner. His follower was that most famous Diogenes, more powerful than King Alexander and a conqueror of human nature. For when Antisthenes would receive no disciples, and could not remove the persevering Diogenes, at last he threatened him with a club, unless he departed. To whom Diogenes is said to have bowed his head, and said: No staff will be so hard as to be able to separate me from your service.

Satyrus, who writes the histories of illustrious men, relates that Diogenes used a double cloak because of the cold: that he had a wallet for a storeroom: and carried with him a club on account of the frailty of his little body, with which, now an old man, he was accustomed to support his limbs, and was commonly called ἡμερόβιος (a day-liver), begging and receiving food for the present hour from anyone. He dwelt, moreover, in the porches of gates and the porticoes of cities. And when he rolled himself in his tub, he used to jest that he had a revolving house, and that he changed with the seasons. For in the cold he would turn the mouth of the tub toward the south; in summer, toward the north, and however the sun inclined itself, the praetorium of Diogenes turned along with it.

But on a certain occasion, having a wooden cup for drinking, he saw a boy drinking from his cupped hand, and is said to have dashed the cup to the ground, saying: I did not know that nature also had a cup. His virtue and continence his death also shows. For when, now an old man, he was proceeding to the Olympic contest, which was celebrated with a great crowd from Greece, he is said to have been seized by a fever on the way, and to have lain down on the edge of the road: and when his friends wished to lift him either onto a beast of burden or a cart, he would not consent: but passing to the shade of a tree, he said: "Go, I beg you, and proceed to watch the games: this night will prove me either victor or vanquished.

If I conquer the fever, I shall come to the contest: if the fever conquers me, I shall go down to the underworld." And there, through the night, having crushed his own throat, he said that he was not so much dying as excluding the fever by death. I have set forth the example of one philosopher only, so that our little handsome and muscular ones, who scarcely leave a trace with the tips of their feet, whose words are in fisticuffs and their syllogisms in kicks: who either do not know or despise the poverty of the Apostles and the hardness of the cross, may at least imitate the frugality of the Gentiles.

I have discoursed on these matters from the arguments and examples of the philosophers. Now, passing to the beginning of the human race, that is, to our own affairs, I shall show that first Adam received in paradise a command, that while eating the rest of the fruits, he should fast from one tree. The blessedness of paradise could not be dedicated apart from abstinence from food. As long as he fasted, he was in paradise: he ate, and was cast out: cast out, he immediately took a wife. He who had been a virgin fasting in paradise, sated, is joined in matrimony on earth: and yet, being cast out, he did not immediately receive license to eat flesh; but only the fruits of trees and the produce of crops, and the vegetables of herbs are handed over to him for food: so that, an exile from paradise, he might feed not on flesh, which was not in paradise, but on the likeness of the fruits of paradise.

But afterward, when God saw that the heart of man was diligently bent upon evil from his youth, and that his spirit could not remain in these things, because they were flesh, He condemned the works of the flesh by the Flood, and, approving the most avid appetite of men, gave them license to eat flesh: so that, while they understood that all things were lawful to them, they would not greatly desire what was lawful; lest they should turn the command into an occasion of transgression. Although even then fasting was in part enjoined. For since some things are called clean, others unclean: and into the Ark of Noah unequal numbers of the unclean and the clean are brought in, two by two of the unclean, and by sevens of the clean (and certainly the eating of the unclean was taken away, lest they should be called unclean without cause), fasting was in part dedicated, teaching the abstinence from all things in the cutting off of some. Why did Esau lose his birthright? Was it not because of food?

Nor could he remedy with tears the impatience of his appetite. The people of Israel, cast out of Egypt, and about to be brought into the land of promise flowing with milk and honey, longed for Egyptian meats, and melons, and garlic. Would that we had died, they said, struck by the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of flesh. And again: Who will feed us with flesh? We remember the fish which we ate in Egypt for nothing, and the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. But now our soul is dry, our eyes see nothing but manna. Despising the food of angels, they sighed for the meats of Egypt. Moses, fasting forty days and nights on Mount Sinai, proving even then that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God, speaks with the Lord: but the people, sated, fabricates idols. He, with an empty stomach, receives the law written by the finger of God.

The other, eating and drinking, and rising up to play, melts gold into a calf, and prefers the Egyptian ox to the majesty of the Lord. The labor of so many days perishes in the satiety of one hour. Moses boldly breaks the tablets: for he knew that drunkards could not hear the word of God. The beloved grew fat, and became thick, and was enlarged, and kicked, and forsook the Lord who made him, and departed from God his Savior. Whence also in the same Deuteronomy it is commanded: Lest, when you have eaten and drunk, and have built the best houses, and your sheep and oxen have multiplied, and your silver and gold, your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God.

Finally it is written that the people ate and their heart was made fat, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart: and the fed and fatter people could not endure the face of the fasting Moses, which, according to the Hebrew truth, was horned from conversing with God. Wherefore also our Lord and Savior, not on account of any indifference between virginity and marriage, as some think, but on account of fellowship in fastings, showed Moses and Elijah with himself in glory, transfigured on the mountain. Although Moses and Elijah properly displayed the type of the Law and the Prophets: as the Scripture of the Gospel plainly testifies: They spoke to him of the departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. For it is not virginity and marriage, but the Law and the Prophets that announce the Passion of the Lord.

But if they contentiously say that marriage is shown in Moses, virginity in Elijah, let them briefly hear that Moses died and was buried, while Elijah was caught up in a fiery chariot, having begun to be immortal before he died. But not even the second writing of the tablets could be obtained apart from fasting. What drunkenness had destroyed, fasting recovered. From which it is shown that we can, through fasting, return to paradise, whence through satiety we had been cast out. In Exodus, against Amalek, by the prayer of Moses and of the whole people, the battle was fought with fasting until evening. Joshua the son of Nun commanded a halt for the sun and the moon: and prolonged the fasting of the victorious army for more than one day. Saul, as is written in the first Book of Kings: Cursed, he said, is the one who eats bread until evening, until I have avenged myself of my enemies. And none of all his people tasted food, and the whole land dined.

And such was the authority of the fast once decreed to the Lord, that Jonathan, who had brought about the victory, was caught by lot, and could not decline the charge of ignorance, and drew upon himself his father's hand, and was scarcely saved by the people's entreaties. Elijah, prepared by a forty days' fast, saw God on Mount Horeb, and hears from him: What doest thou here, Elijah? That voice is much more familiar than that in Genesis, Adam, where art thou? For the latter terrified a fed and lost man; the former caressed a fasting servant. Samuel, having gathered the people at Mizpah, strengthened them by proclaiming a fast, and made them stronger than their enemies. The onslaught of the Assyrians, and the power of Sennacherib, the tears of King Hezekiah, sackcloth, and humbled defeat, broke, laid low, and conquered.

And conversely, the city of Nineveh turned aside the impending wrath of the Lord by the mercy obtained through fasting: which even Sodom and Gomorrah would have appeased, had they wished to do penance, and to win over, with the patronage of fasting, the tears of penitence. Ahab, that most impious king, so as to escape the sentence of God, and that the overthrow of his house might be deferred to his posterity, obtained this by fasting and sackcloth. Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, by an empty stomach, deserved to fill it with a son. The Magi were endangered in Babylon, every diviner and soothsayer and haruspex was slain. Daniel and the three youths merit revelation by fasting; and, fed on legumes, are more beautiful and more prudent than those who ate the meats of the king's table.

Then it is written that Daniel fasted three weeks; he ate no pleasant bread: flesh and wine did not enter his mouth: he was not anointed with oil; and an angel came to him, saying: Daniel, thou art a man greatly beloved. He who had appeared pitiable to God, after his fast was terrible to the lions in the den. How beautiful a thing, which appeases God, tames lions, terrifies demons! There is sent to him (though we have not found this in the Hebrew volumes) Habakkuk, carrying the reapers' meal. For such a bearer of dishes the fast of a week had merited. David, when his son was in danger, after adultery makes his confession in ashes and fasting, saying, Because I did eat ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping. And, My knees are weakened through fasting. And indeed he had already heard from Nathan: The Lord has taken away your sin. Samson and Samuel drank neither wine nor strong drink. For they were sons of promise, and conceived through abstinence and fasting.

Aaron and the rest of the priests, about to enter the Temple, drink nothing that can intoxicate, lest they die. From which we understand that those who minister in the Church without sobriety die. Wherefore it is reproached to Israel, You gave my Nazirites wine to drink. Jonadab, the son of Rechab, commanded his sons that they should not drink wine forever. To whom, when Jeremiah offered wine to drink, and they refused to drink, the Lord speaks through the Prophet: Because you have obeyed the command of Jonadab your father, there shall not fail a man of the line of Jonadab the son of Rechab, standing in my sight all the days. At the threshold of the Gospel, Anna the daughter of Phanuel is introduced, a widow of one husband, always fasting; and long chastity and long fastings received the Lord as a virgin. His forerunner and herald John is fed on locusts and wild honey, not on flesh: and the dwelling of the desert and the cradle of the Monks are begun with such nourishments.

But the Lord himself also dedicated his own baptism with a forty days' fast; and taught that the fiercer demons could be overcome only by prayer and fastings. Cornelius the centurion, so as to receive the Holy Spirit before baptism, merited it by alms and frequent fastings. Paul the Apostle, after hunger and thirst, and his other labors, and the dangers of robbers, shipwrecks, solitudes, enumerates frequent fastings. And to his disciple Timothy, suffering in his stomach, and enduring many infirmities, he advises a small drink of wine: Do not, he says, drink water any longer. But to him to whom he says, do not drink water any longer, he shows that he had drunk water before. Which he would not have granted, unless frequent infirmities and stomach pain had demanded it.

The Apostle indeed condemns those who forbade marriage, and commanded abstinence from those things which God created to be used with thanksgiving: but he also marks out Marcion, and Tatian, and the rest of the heretics, who enjoin perpetual abstinence for the destruction and contempt and abomination of the works of the Creator. We, however, praise every creature of God: and we prefer leanness to fattening, abstinence to luxury, fasting to satiety. For indeed, "a man labours in labours for himself, and does violence unto his own destruction". And, "From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent seize upon it". For we fear lest, at the coming of the eternal judge, as in the days of the Flood, and the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, we be found eating, and drinking, and marrying, and giving in marriage. For both the Flood, and the fire from heaven, found alike satiety and marriages, which they blotted out.

Nor is it strange, if the apostle bids that everything sold in the market be bought and eaten: since for those still idolatrous and among the temples of idols, as though eating things offered to idols, it was accounted the height of abstinence merely to abstain from the foods of the Gentiles. But if he says to the Romans: "Let him who eats not despise him who eats not; and let him who eats not judge him who eats"; he does not thereby assign equal merits between fasting and satiety; rather he speaks against those who, believing in Christ, still judaized: and he warns those who had believed from among the Gentiles not to scandalize by their food those who were still weaker in faith. Finally, in what follows he sounds the same note: "I know, and am confident in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is common of itself, except to him who reckons a thing to be common. For if because of food your brother is grieved, you no longer walk according to charity.

Do not, for the sake of your food, destroy him for whom Christ died. Let not, then, our good be blasphemed. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink". And lest anyone should suppose this said of fasting, and not of Jewish superstition, he immediately explains: "One believes he may eat all things. But he who is weak eats herbs". And again: "One judges one day above another, another judges every day alike. Let every man abound in his own sense. He who is mindful of the day, is mindful of it unto the Lord. And he who eats, eats unto the Lord: for he gives thanks to God. And he who eats not, eats not unto the Lord, and gives thanks to God".

For those who were still weak in faith, and thought some meats clean, others unclean, and reckoned that there was some difference between one day and another—for example, that the sabbath, and the new moons, and the feast of tabernacles were holier than the rest of the days—are bidden to eat herbs, which are eaten indifferently by all. But those who were of firmer faith believed that all meats and all days were equal.

The Lord himself soon dedicated his own baptism, and in his own the baptism of all, with fastings. And presently, that the fiercer demons also must be fought against by fastings. But as for that which he has dared to propose, that the Lord was called by the Pharisees a glutton and a wine-drinker, and that because he went to marriage feasts and did not despise the banquets of sinners, I judge that it makes for us. This is the Lord, as you would suppose, a glutton, who sanctified the fast of Christians for forty days; who calls blessed those who hunger and thirst; who says he has food to eat, not such as the disciples supposed, but such as would not perish forever; who forbids thought for the morrow; who, though he is said to have hungered and thirsted, and to have gone often to feasts, apart from the mystery which he expressed as a type of his passion, and for proving the reality of his body, is nowhere written to have served gluttony or the belly.

Who tells that the rich man clothed in purple is in torment on account of feasting, and says that the poor Lazarus, because of his fasting, is in the bosom of Abraham. Who, when we fast, bids us anoint the head and wash the face, that we may fast not for the glory of men, but unto the Lord. Who indeed after the resurrection ate part of a broiled fish and a honeycomb, not because of hunger and the sweetness of the throat, but that he might prove the truth of his body. For as often as he raised the dead, he commanded that food be given to them, lest the resurrection be thought a phantasm. And Lazarus after his resurrection is written, for this cause, to have entered into a banquet with the Lord. Nor do we say this as though we denied that fish and other such things (if it be one's will) are to be taken as food: but as we prefer virginity to marriage, so we prefer fasting and the spirit to satiety and flesh.

But if Peter, about to dine at the sixth hour, went up into the upper room, a chance hunger does not prejudice fasts. For in this way also the Lord, because at the well of the Samaritan woman he sat weary at the sixth hour and wished to drink, the necessity of drinking at this hour will press upon all, whether they will or not. But it could be that it was either the sabbath or the Lord's day: and that after a fast of two or three days he hungered at the sixth hour; for I could never believe that the apostle, if he had supped the day before and had been sated with feasting, hungered at noon on the next day. But if he had supped the day before, and hungered the next day before dinner, I do not think that he who could so quickly hunger had eaten to satiety.

Moreover, if God speaks through Isaiah, saying that he had not chosen such a fast, saying: "In the days of your fasts your own wills are found, and you strike those subject to you, and you fast unto judgment and strife, and you smite with the fist: I have not chosen this fast, says the Lord" (f. What he has chosen, he teaches: "Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house. If you see one naked, clothe him: and do not despise the members of your own household". He did not, then, reject fasting, but showed what kind he wished: for the hunger of the belly is not acceptable to God, when it is destroyed by strife and rapine and lust. If God does not want fasting, how does he command in Leviticus that in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month, all the people should fast until evening: and that whoever does not afflict his soul should die and be exterminated from his people?

Why do the graves of desire, where the people, given over to fleshly indulgence, fell, remain to this day in the wilderness? And is it not written that the fat people belched forth quail even unto cholera? Why was the man of God, at whose prophecy the hand of king Jeroboam had withered, who ate against the edict of God, immediately struck down? And did not the lion, which kept the ass untouched, spare not the Prophet as he rose from his dinner? He who, fasting, had wrought miracles, having dined, immediately paid the penalty of satiety. But Joel also cries out: "Sanctify a fast: proclaim healing", so that it might be shown that fasting is sanctified by other works: and that a sanctified fast avails for the healing of sins.

But just as true virginity is not prejudiced by the imitation of the virgins of the devil, so neither are true fastings prejudiced by the chastity of Isis and Cybele, and by the eternal abstinence from certain foods: especially since among them the fast from bread is compensated by a fattening of flesh. And just as the signs which Moses did were imitated by the signs of the Egyptians, but were not in truth so: for the rod of Moses devoured the rods of the magicians: so in all things which the devil does in rivalry of God, it is not the superstition of our religion that is proved, but our own negligence, in that we are unwilling to do what even men of the world do not fail to recognize as good.

The fourth proposition, which is also the last, is that there are two orders, of sheep and of goats: one of the just, the other of sinners: some standing on the right, others on the left; and that the just hear: "Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world". But it is said to sinners: "Depart from me, cursed, into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels". That a good tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor an evil tree good fruit. Whence also the Saviour speaks to the Jews: "You are of your father the devil, since you wish to do the desires of your father". He sets forth ten virgins, foolish and wise, and that five, who had no oil, remained outside: but the other five, who had prepared for themselves the light of good works, entered the bridal chamber with the bridegroom.

He goes on to the Flood, and says: "Those who were with Noah, being just, were saved: but those who were sinners all perished together." Among Sodom and Gomorrah, except for two grades of the good and the wicked, no diversity is found. He who is just is snatched away: he who is a sinner is consumed by the same fire alike. There is one salvation for those set free, one destruction for those remaining. That one should not swerve even a little from justice is shown by the wife of Lot. But if, he says, you object to me why the just man labors in peace or in persecutions, if there is no advantage, nor greater rewards: know that he does this not that he may merit something more, but lest he lose what he has received. In Egypt also the ten plagues were felt equally by all the sinners: and like darkness threatened master and slave, noble and ignoble, king and commons alike. But for the saints of God and the people of Israel there was one light.

But also in the Red Sea the just passed through together, the sinners were overwhelmed together. Six hundred thousand men, apart from the age and sex unfit for war, perished equally in the desert, and the two who were equal in justice were equally delivered. For forty years the whole of Israel labored and died alike. A gomer of manna was one measure of food for all ages; garments alike were not worn out, hair together did not grow, beard in common did not increase, shoes lasted equally for all. Feet did not become callused: food tasted the same in the mouths of all. To one dwelling-place they journeyed with equal labor and equal reward. Every Hebrew had an equal Passover, equal feasts of tabernacles, equal sabbath, equal new moons. In the seventh year of rest, without distinction of persons, release is granted, and in the jubilee all debts are released to all alike, and the seller returns to his ancient possession.

But the parable in the Gospel of the sower, in which in good ground a hundredfold, and a sixtyfold, and a thirtyfold fruit arises: and on the contrary in bad ground a threefold variety of barrenness is shown, he divides into two orders, of good ground and of bad. And just as the Lord, in return for children and wives left behind, promises to the apostles, in one Gospel a hundredfold, in another sevenfold, and in the age to come eternal life: and there is no distinction between a hundred and seven; so also in this case the number makes no difference, where the fertility of this earth is proclaimed: especially since the Evangelist Mark also numbers them in reverse, thirty, sixty, and a hundred.

The Lord says: He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him. Therefore, just as Christ is in us without any difference of degrees, so also we are in Christ without degrees. Everyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our dwelling with him. He who is just, loves: he who loves, to him come the Father and the Son, and dwell in his lodging. Where such a dweller is present, I think that nothing can be lacking to the host. But if he says: In my Father's house are many mansions, he does not mean diverse mansions in the kingdom of heaven, but the number of Churches throughout the whole world, which, though one, consists of seven. I go, he says, to prepare a place for you, not places. If this promise belongs properly to the twelve Apostles, then Paul is excluded from this place, and the vessel of election will be thought superfluous and unworthy.

Did John and James, because they asked for more than the rest, fail to obtain it? And yet their dignity was not thereby diminished, since they remained equal to the other Apostles. Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit? He says, it is a temple, not temples, so as to show, in the same way in all, God as the indweller. I pray not for these only, but for those also who shall believe on me through their word: that as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, so they also may be one in us. The glory which thou hast given me, I have given them; I have loved them, as thou hast loved me. And just as we, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, are one God, so also may there be one people in them, that is, as most dear children, sharers of the divine nature.

Bride, sister, mother, and whatever other names you may think of, are the gathering of one Church, which is never without bridegroom, brother, son. She has one faith, is not defiled by variety of doctrines, nor torn apart by heresies. She remains a virgin. Wherever the Lamb goes, she follows him: she alone knows the Song of Christ.

But if, he says, you should object to me, Star differs from star in brightness, you will hear that star differs from star, that is, the spiritual differ from the carnal. We love all the members equally, and we do not prefer the eye to the finger, nor the finger to the ear: but in the loss of any one, the pain is common to all the members. We enter this world equally, and equally go out from it. There is one Adam, earthly, and another, heavenly. He who has been of the earthly is on the left and shall perish: he who is of the heavenly is on the right, and shall be saved. Whoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool, and Raca, shall be liable to hell fire. And he who is a murderer and an adulterer shall likewise be sent into hell. In persecution, whether one is burned, or suffocated, or beheaded, or flees, or dies shut up in prison: the kinds of struggle indeed are various, but there is one crown of the victors.

Between that brother who had always been with the father, and the one who was afterward received back in repentance, there is no difference. To the laborers of the first hour, and the third, and the sixth, and the ninth, and the eleventh, one denarius is paid equally: and, what is more remarkable, the reward begins with those who labored least in the vineyard.

By these and similar testimonies of the divine Scriptures, which the crafty disputer bends toward the perversity of his own doctrine, who, even among the elect of God, would not be tempted? And that the Apostle John says that many Antichrists have come, this is the true preaching of Antichrist, which makes no distance between John himself and the last penitent. And at the same time I marvel how our slippery serpent, our Proteus, changes himself into portents of various forms. For he who in intercourse and gluttony is an Epicurean, suddenly becomes a Stoic in the matter of the recompense of merits. He exchanges Jerusalem for Citium, Judea for Cyprus, Christ for Zeno. If it is not permitted to virtues to decline even a little, and all sins are equal, and he who through hunger has stolen bread is guilty of the same crime as he who has killed a man: then you too are held guilty of the greatest crimes.

Moreover, it is one thing if you say that you have not even the smallest sins, when all the Apostles and Prophets and Saints, according to what I discussed in the second proposition, lament that they are sinners, while you alone boast of your righteousness. Before, you went barefoot: now not only shod, but adorned. Then you were clothed with a combed tunic and a black undergarment, squalid, and pale, and bearing a hand calloused with toil; now you walk adorned in linen and silken garments, and in the clothing of Arras and Laodicea. Your cheeks are red, your skin shines, your hair is curled at the back of the head and over the forehead: your belly protrudes, your shoulders rise, your throat swells, and from your bloated jaws words scarcely come forth, half-strangled. Certainly, in such diversity of food and clothing, there must be sin either here or there. Not that I assert sin to be in food or in clothing, but that variety and change for the worse is close to blame.

And what is blamed is far from virtue: what is far from virtue is given over to vice: what is charged as vicious is joined to sin. And sin, according to your own opinion, belongs to the left side, and is counted in the flock of goats. Therefore either return to your former resolve, so that you may be a sheep on the right hand; or, if you have changed your former resolve by a perverse repentance, whether you will or not—though you shave your beard—you will be counted among the goats.

But what does it profit to call a one-eyed man one-eyed, and to expose the inconsistency of the accuser, when the whole series of propositions must be dissolved? We do not deny that sheep and goats on the right and the left are two orders, of the just and of sinners. That a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree good fruit, no one doubts. The ten virgins also, wise and foolish, we divide into good and bad. We know that in the Flood the just were delivered, and sinners overwhelmed by the waters. In Sodom and Gomorrah, that the just man was snatched away, and the impious consumed by fire, is clear to all. We also know that Egypt was struck with ten plagues, while Israel was kept safe. That the just crossed the Red Sea, and Pharaoh with his army was drowned, even little children sing in the schools.

That six hundred thousand fell in the desert because they were unbelieving, and that only two entered the land of promise, the Scriptures teach; and the rest, down to the laborers of the vineyard, you have described as falling into two orders, of the good and the bad. But how is it that, because there is a division between the good and the bad, you assert that among the good themselves, or conversely among the bad, there is no distance, and that it makes no difference whether, among the flock, one is a ram or a little ewe? Whether they have the first fleece, or the second? Whether the flock is scabby and diseased, or lively and frisky? Especially since Ezekiel shows the sheep to be rational, and demonstrates by the authority of his prophecy a distinction between beast and beast, saying: Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, and between rams and goats, and between the fat cattle and the lean.

Because you pushed with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak cattle with your horns, till you had scattered them abroad.

And so that we might know what these cattle are, he immediately added: But you, my flocks, the flocks of my pasture, are men. Will it then be the same for Paul and for that penitent who had lain with his father's wife, because he was received back into the Church after repentance; and because he is likewise on the right hand, will he shine with the same brightness as the Apostle? And how is it that in one field the tares and the wheat grow up together until the harvest, until the consummation of the world? By what reasoning are good and bad fish contained together in Christ's dragnet and Gospel net? Why, in the type of the Church, in the Ark of Noah, are there diverse animals, and, according to the quality of their merits, diverse abodes? Why did the queen stand at the right hand of the Lord in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety? Why did Joseph, in the figure of Christ, have a coat of many colors?

Why does the Apostle say to the Romans: To each as God has divided the measure of faith? For as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same function: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given us, whether prophecy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, in ministering, or he who teaches, in teaching, he who exhorts, in exhorting, he who gives, in simplicity, he who rules, with diligence, and the rest And in another place: One judges one day above another, another judges every day alike. Let every man abound in his own sense. And to the Corinthians: I have planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. He who plants and he who waters are one. But each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.

For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's tillage, you are God's building. And again elsewhere: According to the grace of God given to me, as a wise architect I have laid the foundation, and another builds thereon. For other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest. For the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abides, which he has built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burns, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.

If he whose work has burned and perished and suffered the loss of his labor loses indeed the reward of his labor, but is himself saved, yet not without the proof of fire: then he whose work, which he built thereon, remains, shall be saved without the trial of fire, and there will certainly be some difference between one salvation and another. Also in another place he says: Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the stewards of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required among stewards, that a man be found faithful. Do you wish to know that between one steward and another there is much difference (I do not speak of the bad and the good, but of those good ones themselves who stand at the right hand)? Hear what follows: Do you not know that they who work in the holy things eat of the things of the temple; and they who serve at the altar partake with the altar?

So also the Lord ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live by the Gospel; but I have used none of these things. Neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me. For it is good for me rather to die, than that any man should make my glory void. For if I preach the Gospel, it is no glory to me; for a necessity lies upon me: for woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel. For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, a dispensation is committed to me. What is my reward then? That when I preach the Gospel, I may make the Gospel without charge, so that I abuse not my power in the Gospel. For whereas I was free from all, I made myself the servant of all, that I might gain the more. Can you say that those who live by the Gospel, and those who partake of the altar, are sinning?

Certainly not; for the Lord ordained that those who preach the Gospel should live by the Gospel; but the Apostle, who does not abuse this license, but labors with his own hands, so as not to burden anyone, and works day and night, and ministers to those who are with him—surely he does this so that, laboring more, he might receive some greater reward.

Let us hasten on to the rest. There are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but the same God, who worketh all in all. But to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit according as it is expedient. And again: As the body is one, and hath many members: yet all the members of the body, though many, are one body; so also is Christ. But lest you should say that in one body diverse members have one and the same merit, he immediately describes the ranks of the Church, and says: God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles, secondly Prophets, thirdly Doctors, then powers, and gifts of healings, helps, governments, kinds of tongues. Are all Apostles? Are all Prophets? Are all Doctors? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gift of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But covet the better gifts, and I show you yet a more excellent way.

And when he had discussed at length the powers of charity, he added: Whether prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. And in what follows: And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three. But the greatest of these is charity. Follow after charity, be zealous for spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy. And again: I would that you all spoke with tongues, but rather that you prophesied. For greater is he that prophesieth, than he that speaketh with tongues. And again: I thank God that I speak with tongues more than you all. Where the gifts are diverse, and one is greater, another less, and all are called spiritual, certainly they are sheep, and stand on the right hand, and yet between sheep and sheep there is some diversity.

The Apostle Paul indeed speaks of humility: I am the least of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace in me hath not been void, but I have laboured more abundantly than all they. Yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Nevertheless, in humbling himself, he shows that some Apostles can be lesser, others greater, and that he who is indeed called a vessel of election, and who laboured more abundantly than all, is not such that God is unjust so as to forget his work, and to recompense unequal merit with equal reward. Then we read: As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive; but every man in his own order. When each shall rise in his own order, surely the merits of those rising are diverse.

All flesh is not the same flesh; but one is the flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, another of fishes. There are also celestial bodies, and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and that of the terrestrial another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. For star differeth from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. This, you learned interpreter, you have expounded in such a way as to say that the spiritual differ from the carnal. Therefore both the spiritual and the carnal shall be in the heavens, and now not only sheep but even your goats shall ascend into the kingdoms of heaven. Star, he says, differeth from star in glory: not sheep and goats, but sheep and sheep, that is, star and star. Then he says, One is the glory of the sun, and another the glory of the moon.

Lest you should assert that "star and star" meant the whole race of mankind, he set down sun and moon, which certainly you will not be able to number among the goats. So, he says, shall also be the resurrection of the dead, that the just may shine with the brightness of the sun, and those who are in the next rank may glow with the splendor of the moon, so that one may be Lucifer, another Arcturus, another Orion, another Mazuroth, and the other names of the stars which are contained in the sacred book of Job. For, he says, we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, whether good or evil.

And lest perhaps you should say that we are manifested before the judgment seat of Christ merely that the good may receive good things, and the evil, evil things, he teaches in the same Epistle: He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly; and he who soweth in blessings, shall also reap of blessings. Certainly both he who sows more, and he who sows less, are of the right-hand portion. And though there is one kind of sowing, yet they differ in measure and number. The same Paul writes to the Ephesians: That the manifold and various wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavens, through the Church. Do you see that in the diverse companies of the Church, the manifold and various wisdom of God is proclaimed?

And also in the same Epistle: But to every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ; not that the measure of Christ is diverse, but that his grace is poured out only in such measure as we are able to receive.

In vain, therefore, do you repeat to me sheep and goats, five and five virgins, Egyptians and Israelites, and other such things of this kind, because there is no requital in the present, but in the future. Whence also the day of judgment is promised at the consummation, because there is now no judgment. For it would be pointless to call it the last day of judgment, if God were already judging. At present we are sailing, wrestling, and fighting, that at the end we may come to port, be crowned, and triumph. But you, perversely and slipperily, propose the manner of life of this present age as an example of the things to come, whereas here indeed is injustice, but there justice: until we enter the sanctuary of God, and understand their last end. Does not one die a saint, another a sinner, in a different way? Is there the same calm and the same storm for those sailing on the same sea? Is not the robber slain in one way, the Martyr in another?

Are not children born differently from adultery and brothels than from chaste marriages? Certainly the Lord and the thieves were crucified by the same judgment. If the judgment of this age and of the future is the same, then those who were crucified together here will likewise be held equal in the future. Paul and those who had bound him sail together, endure the storm together, and, when the ship is broken up by the waves, escape together to the shore. You cannot deny that between the bound man and those who bound him there are diverse merits. And how is there one shipwreck of the Apostle and of the soldiers? Afterward the Apostle Paul relates a revelation, and says that they too were granted to him but by the grace of God with me. Those who had been in the ship, he says, were granted to him by the Lord. Is he to whom they are given, and those who are given, of one and the same merit? Ten righteous men can rescue a sinful city.

Lot was rescued with his daughters from the fire: his sons-in-law also would have been freed, had they wished to go out. And certainly there is much difference between Lot and his sons-in-law. Segor, one city of the five, is freed, and though it was of the same desert as Sodom and Gomorrah, Adama, and Seboim, and lay under the same sentence, it is preserved by the prayers of the saint. Behold the difference of merit between Lot and Segor, and yet they escape the fire equally. The marauders who, in David's absence, had laid waste Siceleg, and had led away their wives and children as spoil, are cut down on the third day in the field, and four hundred men, mounted on camels, flee. Tell me if there is any difference between those who were slain and those who were able to flee. We read in the Gospel that the tower of Siloam fell upon eighteen men, and killed them by its collapse.

Certainly, according to the sentence of the Saviour, they were not the only sinners; but they were punished to strike fear into the rest, that, one being scourged by pestilence, the fool might become wiser. If there is but one punishment for all sinners, then one is unjustly slain, and by the death of another, another is admonished.

You object to me the Gomor of manna, and the one measure, and the clothing and hair and beard and shoes, as having been equal among the Israelites; as though we too do not receive the body of Christ equally. There is one sanctification in the mysteries, of the Lord and of the servant, of the noble and the ignoble, of the king and the soldier: although, according to the merits of those who receive, that which is one becomes diverse. For he who eats and drinks unworthily shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ. Is it because Judas also drank of the same cup from which the other Apostles drank, that he will be of the same merit as the rest? But if you refuse to accept this concerning the Sacrament, certainly we all live equally, we draw one air, we are watered by the same moisture, we are fed by the same foods.

Moreover, if food is changed for the better by the art of cooks, and something becomes more delicious by seasoning, such foods do not satisfy nature, but pleasure. We hunger alike, we are cold alike: we shrink together with cold, and are dissolved together by heat and burning. The sun itself also, and the moon, and the whole chorus of stars, and the rains, run their course equally for us, and all of us alike are watered, according to the Gospel, by the same showers, both good and evil, just and unjust. If present things are examples of future things, then also the Sun of righteousness will rise equally upon the just and sinners, upon the impious and the holy, upon Christians and Jews and Gentiles alike, though Scripture says: But to you who fear the Lord, the Sun of righteousness shall arise. If it shall rise for those who fear him, then it will set upon the contemptuous and the false prophets.

The sheep who stand on the right hand are brought into the kingdoms of heaven, the goats are thrust down into hell. That parable does not describe the merits of the sheep among themselves, nor, on the other side, of the goats; but it makes distinction only between sheep and goats. For not all things are taught in all places: but each similitude is referred to that of which it is the similitude. Just as the ten virgins are not examples of the whole human race, but of the watchful and the slothful: of whom some always await the Lord's coming, while others, giving themselves to sleep and idleness, do not believe in the coming judgment. Whence also at the end of the parable it is said: Watch, for you know neither the day nor the hour. If Noah was saved in the flood, and the whole world perished: they were all flesh, and therefore they perished.

Either you must say that the sons of Noah and Noah, for whose sake the sons were saved, were not of the same merit; or you must place the accursed Cham in the same rank as his father, because he was likewise saved from the flood. In the Passion of Christ all turned aside, all became useless together; and there was none that did good, no, not one. Will you then dare to say that Peter and the other Apostles who fled denied him in the same way as Caiphas and the Pharisees, and the people crying out, "Crucify, crucify such a one"? And to say nothing of the Apostles, will Annas, and Caiphas, and Judas the betrayer, seem to you guilty of the same crime as Pilate, who, unwilling, was compelled to pass sentence against the Lord? The greater Judas' merit had been, the greater his crime; and the greater the crime, the greater the punishment. For the mighty shall be mightily tormented. An evil tree does not bear good fruits, nor a good tree evil ones.

If this is so, answer me, how did Paul, being an evil tree while persecuting the Church of Christ, afterward bear good fruits? And how did Judas, being a good tree while working signs with the Apostles, afterward turn into a betrayer and bear evil fruits? So then, neither does a good tree bear evil fruits, nor an evil one good, so long as it perseveres either in its goodness or in its malice. Moreover, as to the fact that every Hebrew keeps the Passover equally, and in the seventh year is made free, and in the Jubilee, that is, the fiftieth year, every possession returns to its owners, this is not said of the present, but of the future: because, serving in the six days of this age, in the seventh day, the true and eternal sabbath, we shall be free: if only we are willing to be free, while we still serve in this age.

But if we are unwilling, our ear will be pierced, as a testimony of disobedience; and with our wife and children, whom we preferred to liberty, that is, with the flesh and its works, we shall serve continually.

But the parable of the sowing, which on either side produces three-fold fruits; and according to the Apostle, one builds upon the foundation of Christ gold, silver, precious stones: another wood, hay, stubble; since even in a great house there are diverse vessels, is plainly evident: and to wish to contradict this is the most open impudence. Yet lest he exult in a lie and bring forward the example of the apostles to the prejudice of the hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold number, let him know that in Matthew and in Mark, to the apostles, who gave up all their possessions, a hundredfold was promised. But in the Gospel of Luke much more, that is, πολυπλείονα, and that in absolutely no Gospel is it written seven instead of a hundred; nor is one thereby held guilty of forgery or of ignorance; nor does it harm us that in one Gospel the number begins at a hundred, in another at thirty; since all Scripture, especially the Old Testament, sets the lesser number first and thus climbs gradually to the greater.

For example, as one might say that someone was a hundred and seventy-five years old, yet the seventy-five could not be more than the hundred, which was named first. If you do not take in a good sense the diversity of the number a hundred, sixty, and thirty, neither will you take in a bad sense; and the fault will be the same for the seed that fell beside the way, and upon the rocks, and among the thorns. But if those three, and these, are each taken either in a good or in a bad sense individually, it was foolish to number six kinds for two things, especially since in Matthew and in Mark and in Luke, when the parable was set forth, the Savior always added: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Where there is nothing hidden within, it is in vain that we are summoned to a mystical understanding.

But if the Father and the Son make their dwelling with believers, and where Christ is a guest, you suppose that nothing is lacking there, I suppose that Christ dwelt otherwise among the Corinthians, otherwise among the Ephesians; that is, otherwise among those in whom the apostle Paul detected many sins, and otherwise among those to whom he expounded the mysteries unknown for ages: otherwise in Titus and Timothy, otherwise in Paul. Certainly among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist. But where one is called greater, it is necessary that he had others who were lesser. And, “He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” You see, then, that in the heavens there is a greatest and a least, and among the angels too, and among the invisible creatures there is a manifold and infinite diversity. Why do the apostles say, “Lord, increase our faith,” if there is one measure for all?

And the Lord to the disciple: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” In Jeremiah too we read concerning the future kingdom: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Jacob a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with your fathers.” And a little after: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their heart, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people; and no longer shall a man teach his neighbor, and a man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.” Plainly, from the context of that passage, the Prophet describes the future kingdom of Christ; and by what consequence will there be a least and a greatest there, if all are to be equal?

Certainly by that same consequence as is said in the Gospel: “Whoever shall teach and do, he shall be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever shall teach and not do, shall be least.” At the banquet the Savior instructs us to take the lower place, lest, when a greater one comes, we be shamefully thrust down from the higher. If we cannot fall, but are only lifted up through repentance, what does that ladder at Bethel mean, by which angels descend and ascend, who come from the heavens to the earth? Certainly they stood among the sheep and at the right hand, while they were there. Angels descend from the heavens, and Jovinian is secure about their possession.

But who could restrain his laughter at this, that he should suppose the many mansions with the Father to be the churches scattered throughout the whole world, when Scripture most plainly teaches, according to the Gospel of John, that the discourse was, Lord, not about the number of churches, but about the mansions of the heavens, and the eternal tabernacles which the Prophet desires? “In my Father’s house,” he says, “there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself, that where I am, you also may be.” The place and the mansions which Christ says he will prepare for the apostles are certainly in the Father’s house, that is, in the kingdom of heaven, not on earth, on which he was for the present leaving the apostles.

At the same time, the sense of the Scripture must be observed: “I would tell you,” he says, “that I go to prepare a place for you: if there were not many mansions with the Father,” that is, if each one did not prepare a mansion for himself, not from the largesse of God, but from his own works: and therefore it is not mine to prepare, but yours, since the place prepared availed Judas nothing, which he lost by his own fault.

According to which sense also that must be understood which is said to the sons of Zebedee, of whom one desired to sit at the left, the other at the right: “You shall indeed drink my cup; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to give to you, but to those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” It is not the Son’s to give: and how is it the Father’s to prepare? “There are prepared,” he says, “in heaven diverse and very many mansions, for very many and diverse virtues,” which are received not by persons, but by works. In vain, then, do you ask of me what lies within your own power, what my Father has prepared for those who, by worthy virtues, are to ascend to so great a dignity.

Further, as to what he says: “I will come again, and receive”—that is, in the kingdom you to myself, that where I am, you also may be, he speaks properly to the Apostles, of whom it is also written elsewhere: “That as I and thou, Father, are one, so also they may be one in us,” who have believed, who are perfect, who can say, “The Lord is my portion.” But if there are not many mansions, how is it that both in the Old Testament and in the New, one order is held by the high priest, another by the priests, another by the Levites, another by the doorkeepers, another by the temple-keepers? And in the book of Ezekiel, where the order of the future Church and of the heavenly Jerusalem is described, priests who had sinned are degraded to temple-keepers and doorkeepers: and though they are in the temple of God, that is, on the right hand, they are not among the rams, but among the least of the sheep.

In that river too, which goes forth from the temple, and waters the salt sea, and gives life to all things, many species of fish are described. Why, in the kingdom of heaven, are there Archangels, Angels, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Cherubim, and Seraphim; and every name that is named, not only in the present age, but also in that which is to come? It is without cause that there is a diversity of names, where there is no diversity of merits. An archangel is certainly greater than other, lesser angels. Archangels, and Powers, and Dominions have things through which they exercise power, and things subjected to them over which they rule. This is in the heavens, this is in the ministry of God, lest you mock and deride us in your usual manner, if we set forth emperors, prefects and counts, and tribunes, and centurions, and companies, and the rest of the military order.

But as to what he says: “Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit”: it is frivolous, since divine Scripture is accustomed to call one thing in the plural, and many things in the singular: and yet let him know that in the temple itself there are also many mansions, that there is an outer court, an inner court, that there are vestibules, that there is the holy place, that there is the Holy of Holies. There are also kitchens in the temple, and there are storerooms, and winepresses, and receptacles for vessels. So too in the temple of our body there are diverse merits. God does not dwell equally in all: nor is he poured into all according to the same measure. From the spirit of Moses a portion is taken away, and given to the seventy elders. I suppose the abundance of a river to be one thing, that of little streams another. The spirit of Elijah is given to Elisha twofold: whence also a twofold grace wrought greater signs.

The one, being alive, raised a dead man; the other, being dead, raised a dead man. The one invoked famine upon the people; the other, to a besieged city, in a single day provided the enemy's spoils. Granted that what he says, “Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit,” he says of the whole Church of believers, who, gathered together equally, make up one body of Christ. Here now the question arises, in the body, who is worthy of Christ’s feet, who of the head: who is his eye, who his hand. This too the two women in the Gospel signify, the penitent and the holy one: of whom the one holds his feet, the other his head. Although some think it is one woman, and that she who began first at the feet advanced gradually to the crown of the head.

But also that which he objects, “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who shall believe in me through their word: that as I, Father, am in thee, and thou in me, so they also may be one in us”: and that all the Christian people are one in God, as most beloved sons, sharers of the divine nature. We have already said above, and now it must be more fully impressed, that we are one in the Father and the Son not according to nature, but according to grace. For the human soul and God are not of the same substance (as the Manichaeans are wont to say).

But, “Thou hast loved them,” he says, “as thou hast also loved me.” You see, then, that we are taken into fellowship of his substance not of nature, but of grace; and therefore he loves us, because the Father has loved the Son: and the members are loved, namely in the body. “For as many as received him, to them he gave power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name: who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The Word was made flesh, that we might pass from flesh into the Word. Nor did the Word cease to be what it had been; nor did man lose what he was born as. Glory was increased, nature was not changed. Do you wish to know how we become one body with Christ? Let him teach you who founded it. “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he who eats me shall live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven.” But John the Evangelist too, who had drawn wisdom from the breast of Christ, agrees in the same words, saying: “In this we know that we abide in him, and he in us: because he has given us of his Spirit. If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” If you believe in Christ, as the Apostles also believed, you will be made one body with them in Christ. But if it is rash to claim for yourself the faith and works of those whose same faith and works you do not have, you will not be able to hold the same place.

Furthermore, as to what you keep boasting, that bride, sister, mother, and all these names belong to one Church, and that all believers are signified by these names, this tells against you. For if there is one order of the Church, and it does not have very many members in one body; what need is there that she be called bride, sister, and mother, unless she is the bride of some, the sister of others, the mother of others? All indeed stand at the right hand: but one stands as bridegroom, another as brother, another as son. "My little children," he says, "with whom I travail again in birth, until Christ be formed in you". Do you suppose those who are being brought forth in travail are of the same merit as the one who travails?

Whence also you have foolishly wished to assert that we love all members equally, and that the eye is not preferred to the finger, nor the hand to the ear; but that in the loss of each member the grief is the same, though the Apostle teaches the Corinthians that some members are more honorable, others more modest; and those that are more modest are surrounded with greater honor: while those that are honorable in themselves have no need of our concern. Do you think the mouth and the belly, the eyes and the passages through which dung and urine are voided, are of the same order and merit? "The lamp of thy body," he says, "is thine eye. If thine eye be blind, thy whole body is in darkness". If you cut off a finger, or the tip of an ear, there is indeed pain, but not so great a loss, nor so great a disfigurement along with the pain, as if you should tear out the eyes, cut off the nose, or slash the mouth.

We can live without some members; without others we cannot live at all. There are light sins, there are grave ones. It is one thing to owe ten thousand talents, another to owe a farthing. And indeed we shall be held guilty both for an idle word and for adultery; but fumigation is not the same as being racked; blushing is not the same as being tormented for a long time. Do you think it is we who say this? Hear the Apostle John: "He who knows his brother to sin a sin not unto death, let him ask, and he shall give him life, for him that sinneth not unto death. But he that sinneth unto death, who shall pray for him"? You see that if we pray for lesser sins, we obtain pardon. If for greater ones, the obtaining is difficult: and between sin and sin there is a great distance.

Whence also concerning the people of Israel, because they had sinned a sin unto death, it is said to Jeremiah: "Pray not for this people, neither take up for them a plea, and do not resist me, for I will not hear thee". But if all alike enter the world and depart from the world, and this is a prejudgment of things to come: then equally shall we be reckoned before God both righteous and sinners, because now we are born and die in like manner. But if you contend that there are two Adams, one earthly, one heavenly; and that those who have been in the earthly one are on the left, while those who have been in the heavenly one are on the right; answer me meanwhile, that I may ask you about two brothers: Was Esau in the earthly, or in the heavenly? No one doubts that you will answer that he was in the earthly. In which was Jacob? You will say at once, in the heavenly.

And how was he in the heavenly, when Christ had not yet come in the flesh, who is called the second and heavenly Adam? Either, then, you will reckon all before the incarnation of Christ as being in the old Adam, and the righteous too as in the earthly man, and they will be among your goats on the left; or, if it is impious to place Isaac where Ishmael is, Jacob where Esau is, the saints where sinners are, then the last Adam will be reckoned from that time when Christ was born of the Virgin, and your argument of the two Adams will not avail for your sheep and goats, since we have proven that in the first Adam there were both sheep and goats, and that in one and the same man some have stood at God's right hand, others at his left. "For from Adam even unto Moses, death reigned over all, even over those who had not sinned, after the likeness of the transgression of Adam".

Now as to what you strive to prove, that reviling and murder, "raca" and adultery, and an idle word and impiety, are repaid by one and the same punishment, I have already answered you above, and I will now answer briefly. Either you will deny that you are a sinner, so as not to be liable to Gehenna; or if you are a sinner, you will be led to hell even for a light offense. "The mouth," it says, "that lies, kills the soul". I suspect that you too, being a man, have at some time lied: "for every man is a liar", so that God alone is true, and may be justified in his words, and may overcome when he is judged. Either, then, you will not be a man, so as not to be a liar; or, since you are a man, if you have lied, you will be punished along with parricides and adulterers.

For there is no difference among sins: and those whom you raise from the lowly to the sublime will not be as grateful to you as those whom you have thrust into outer darkness for a light and daily sin will be angry. But if, in persecution, one who is strangled and one who is beheaded, and one who flees, and one who is thrust into prison and dies there, in various kinds of struggle receive one crown of victory, this too works in our favor. For in the Martyr it is the will, from which death itself is born, that is crowned. It is mine to set myself against the fury of the Gentiles, and not to deny the Lord. It is now in their power either to behead, or to burn, or to shut up in prison, or to apply various kinds of torments. But if I should flee, and die in solitude, the crown of the one dying will not be the same, because the cause of death is not the same as Christ's.

But as to what you say, that there is no difference at all between the brother who was always with the father and the one who was afterward received back as a penitent, I add, if you will, that the one drachma which had been lost and was found was joined to the rest; and that the one sheep which the good shepherd sought out and brought back, leaving the ninety-nine sheep, completed the number of a hundred. But it is one thing to be a penitent and to beg pardon with tears, another to be always with the father. Whence, through Ezekiel, the shepherd and father speaks to the sheep brought back, and to the son once lost: "And I will establish my covenant with thee: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, and thou shalt remember, and be confounded, so that thou shalt no more open thy mouth because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done".

That penitents may lack nothing in comparison with the righteous, confusion alone suffices for them instead of all punishment. Whence also in another place it is said to them: "And ye shall remember your most wicked ways, and all the crimes with which ye were defiled, and ye shall be displeasing to yourselves in your own sight, for all your wickednesses which ye have done; and ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have done well by you, for my name's sake, and not according to your evil ways, nor according to your most wicked crimes". The son is also rebuked by the father for envying his brother's salvation, and, while the Angels rejoice in heaven, being tormented with jealousy. And yet the similitude of the two brothers, the frugal and the prodigal, pertains not to the merits of the whole human race, but either to the persons of the Jew and the Christian, or to those of the saints and of penitents.

On which parable I dedicated a certain little book to Bishop Damasus, while he was still living.

Furthermore, if to the workers of the first hour, and the third, and the sixth, and the ninth, and the eleventh, one denarius is given, and the reward begins with those who worked last in the vineyard: here too men are described not of one time and one age; but from the beginning of the world to the end, they are the sacraments of diverse callings. At the first hour Abel and Seth were called; at the third, Enoch and Noah; at the sixth, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; at the ninth, Moses and the Prophets; at the eleventh, the people of the Gentiles: to whom the reward is given first, because, believing in the crucified Lord, they earned by the difficulty of their faith the greatness of the rewards; and many kings and prophets desired to see what we see, and saw it not. But the one denarius is not one reward, but one life, and one deliverance from Gehenna.

As to the rest, just as by a general indulgence men guilty of diverse crimes are released from prison, and each is in this or that state of life according to his labor or works; so too the denarry, as it were an indulgence of the true Prince, sends all forth from prison through baptism. It is now our own labor's task to prepare for ourselves diverse rewards, according to the diversity of our virtues.

Thus far we have answered point by point to the propositions set forth. The following discourse will answer to all in common. The Lord said to his disciples: Whoever, he says, wishes to be greater among you, let him be least of all. If we are all going to be equal in heaven, then in vain do we humble ourselves here, that we might there be greater. Concerning the two debtors, one of five hundred denarii and one of fifty, he to whom more is forgiven loves more. Whence also the Saviour says: I say to you, her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much. But he to whom less is forgiven loves less. He who loves less, and to whom less is forgiven, will certainly be in a lower rank. A householder, going on a journey, delivered to his servants his substance, to one five talents, to another two, to another one: to each according to his own capacity.

Something similar is written also in another Gospel, that a nobleman, going into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return, called ten servants, and gave them each one mina, of whom one gained ten minas, another five: and each, according to his own capacity and profit, received either ten or five cities. But the other, who had received one talent, or one mina, buried what he had received, or bound it up in a napkin, and kept it for his lord's coming. First it must be considered, that if the just do not labor in hope of advancement, as our Zeno would have it, but only that they may not lose what they had received, then this man who buried the mina and the talent, in order not to lose what he had received, did not sin; and the caution of one who preserves is more praiseworthy than the vain labor of those who toiled without reward for their labor.

Then, that this same talent which is taken away from the timid or negligent servant is not given to him who had made less profit, but to him who had made more, that is, to him who had been set over ten cities. If number does not make for rank, why did he say, He gave to each according to his own capacity? If the gains of five talents and of ten are the same, why are not ten cities delivered to him who made less profit, and five to him who made more? But that the Lord is not content with what we have, but always desires greater things, he himself shows, saying: Why didst thou not give my money to the bankers, that at my coming I might have exacted it with interest?

Which indeed the Apostle Paul, knowing, forgets the things that are behind, and stretches forward to those that are before, that is, he makes progress daily, and does not keep in a napkin, in luxurious ease, the grace he has received; but like a greedy merchant he renews himself from day to day, and thinks himself to be diminishing unless he is always increasing. Six cities of refuge for fugitives are described in the Law, for men who killed unwillingly: and these very cities belong to the priests. I would like to ask, do you place these fugitives among your goats, or among our sheep? If they were goats, they would be killed as other murderers, nor would they enter the cities of God's ministers. If you say sheep, certainly they will not be such sheep as graze in complete freedom, without fear of wolves.

And it will be proved to you that they are indeed sheep, but straying ones: that they stand at the right, but do not remain stationary but flee, until the great priest dies, and, descending to the lower regions, sets free the souls of the fugitives. The Gibeonites came to meet the children of Israel, and, after the slaughter of other nations, were kept as hewers of wood and drawers of water. And they are of such merit before God that the stock of Saul was destroyed on account of the wrong done to them. Among whom will you place them? Among the goats? But they were not killed, and are they not vindicated by the sentence of the Lord? Among the sheep? But the divine Scripture says that they are not of the same merit as the Israelites. You see, then, that they stand indeed at the right, but in a much lower rank. Between David, the holy man, and Saul, the most wicked king, Jonathan stood midway.

Him we cannot place among the kids, because he is worthy of the prophet's love; nor among the rams, lest we make him equal to David, especially since he too was slain. He will be, then, among the sheep, but in a lower rank. And just as between David and Jonathan, so between one sheep and another you will be compelled to admit differences. The servant who knew his lord's will, and did not prepare, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required; and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand more. Behold, more or less is committed to one servant and another, and according to the quality of the trust and of the sin, the number of stripes also is imposed.

The whole description of the land of Judea and of the tribes is a figure of the future Church in the heavens. Let us read Joshua the son of Nun, let us read the last parts of Ezekiel, and we shall see that whatever in the one is distributed as it were historically upon the earth, is in the other promised again spiritually in the heavens. What do the seven and eight steps in the description of the Temple mean? What again does it mean that in the Psalter, after the letters of the hundred and eighteenth psalm, by which we are instructed in the mystical alphabet, we arrive there through fifteen steps, so that we may be able to sing: Behold now, bless the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord. Ye that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God?

Why do two and a half tribes dwell across the Jordan, where there are very many cattle, while the nine and a half remaining either expel the former inhabitants from their dwellings, or dwell together with them? Why does the Levitical tribe receive no portion in the land, but the Lord is its portion; and among the Levites and priests themselves, into the Holy of Holies, where the Cherubim and the mercy-seat are, only the high priest enters? Why do the rest of the priests use only linen garments, and do not have the vestment woven with gold, hyacinth, scarlet, purple, and fine linen? The Levites and priests of lower rank receive wagons and oxen: those of higher order carry the ark of the Lord upon their own shoulders. If you remove the order of the Tabernacle, of the Temple, of the Church, if all who are at the right are, as is commonly said, of one uniform rank for the service, in vain are there bishops, in vain presbyters, without cause deacons. Why do virgins persevere?

Why do widows labor? Why do married women practice continence? We all sin, and after penance we shall be the same as the Apostles are.

But now we have begun to catch sight of land from the deep sea, and after mountains of surging waters, and foaming waves, and the ship, now raised on high, now plunging into the depths, the harbor at last opens, little by little, to the weary and fainting. We have spoken of marriage, widows, virgins. We have preferred virginity to widowhood, and widowhood to matrimony. The pericope of the Apostle, discussing questions of this kind, has been expounded, and to each objection an answer has been given. Secular literature also has come into play, showing which women were virgins, which were one-husband women, and, on the other hand, what troubles the marriage bond sometimes has. We passed to the second division, in which he denies that those who have received baptism with full faith can afterwards sin. And we taught that, except for God, every creature is subject to fault, not that all have sinned, but that they can sin, and that the fall of some who resemble us is a warning to those who stand.

Third, we came to fasting, and since our adversary's proposition was twofold, appealing either to the philosophers, or to the examples of the divine Scriptures, we also answered both. The fourth, that is the last, division had distributed sheep and goats, the right hand and the left, the just and sinners, into two ranks, wishing to show that there is no distance between one just man and another just man, between one sinner and another sinner. And to prove this, he had heaped up countless examples from the Scriptures, as though fitting to his own opinion, to which question we have answered both with arguments and with examples from the Scriptures, and we have crushed the old opinion of Zeno, as much by common sense as by divine reading.

Now it remains that we address our Epicurus, grunting in his little gardens among young men and little women. The fat, sleek, whitened ones favor you. Add, if you like, following the Socratic mockery, all the swine, and dogs, and, since you love flesh, the vultures too, eagles, hawks, and owls. Never will the multitude of Aristippus terrify us. Whatever handsome men, whatever curling-iron-dressed men, whomever I see with hair arranged, with reddened cheeks, they are of your herd, indeed they grunt among your swine. Of our flock are the sorrowful, the pale, the unkempt, and, as it were, strangers in this world, who, though they be silent in speech, speak by their dress and bearing: Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged! I have dwelt among the tents of Cedar, namely in the darkness of this world, because the light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it. Do not boast that you have many disciples. The Son of God taught in Judea, and only twelve apostles followed him.

I have trodden the winepress alone, he says, and of the Gentiles there was no man with me. He remained alone in his passion, and even the constancy of Peter toward him wavered: but the teaching of the Pharisees, all the people applauded, saying: Crucify, crucify such a one. We have no king but Caesar, that is, we follow vices, not virtues: Epicurus, not Christ: Jovinian, not the Apostle Paul. That many acquiesce in your opinion is a sign of pleasure: for they do not so much approve of you speaking, as favor their own vices. In the circles of the public squares a pretend fortune-teller daily beats the buttocks of fools, and with a twisted cudgel shakes the teeth of those who bite, and yet there is never lacking one who can always be persuaded? And do you count it great wisdom, if more swine run after you, whom you feed for the slaughter-house of Gehenna?

After your proclamation, and the baths which wash men and women together, all the impatience which formerly, as though with the garments of modesty, covered burning lust, has been stripped bare and exposed: what before was in secret, is now in the open. You have shown such disciples, you have not made them. This is what your teaching has accomplished, that sins should not even have repentance. Your virgins, whom by the most prudent counsel—which no one had ever read or heard—you taught from the Apostle's words, It is better to marry than to burn, have turned from secret adulteresses into open wives. The Apostle did not counsel this, nor did the vessel of election. It is Virgil's counsel: He calls it marriage, and under this name he covers his fault.

It is now nearly four hundred years since the preaching of Christ began to shine forth in the world. From that time innumerable heresies have gnawed at his tunic, and almost every error has proceeded from the Chaldean and Syrian and Greek tongue. Basilides, master of luxury and of the most shameful embraces, after so many years has so transformed himself into Jovinian, as Euphorbus once was transformed, that his heresy might have a voice in the Latin tongue as well. Was there no other province in the whole world to receive this proclamation of pleasure, into which the twisting serpent might creep, except the one which Peter's doctrine had founded upon the rock which is Christ? The standard of the cross and the austerity of preaching had destroyed the temples of idols: in this region luxury of belly and throat strives to overthrow the strength of the cross. Whence God speaks through Isaiah: My people, they that call you blessed deceive you, and disturb the paths of your feet.

And also through Jeremiah: Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and let every man save his own soul, and do not believe the false prophets who say, peace, peace, and there is no peace: who ever repeat, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish things, they have not laid open your iniquity, that they might call you to repentance; they who devour the people of God as the food of bread, have not called upon God. Jeremiah, announcing the captivity, was stoned by the people. Ananias son of Azur was at that time breaking wooden yokes, and preparing iron ones for the future. False prophets always promise sweet things, and please for a little while. Truth is bitter, and those who preach it are filled with bitterness. For in the unleavened bread of truth and sincerity the Passover of the Lord is celebrated, and it is eaten with bitter herbs.

A noble utterance indeed, and one that the bride of Christ may hear, among virgins, and widows, and celibates (whence also the very name is given, that they are worthy of heaven who lack intercourse). Fast rarely, marry more often. For you cannot fulfill the works of marriage unless you take mead, and meats, and nuts. Strength is needed for lust. Flesh quickly wastes and withers. Do not fear fornication. He who has once been baptized in Christ cannot fall: for he has, to skim off the foam of his lusts, the solace of marriage. And even if you should fall, penitence will restore you whole, and you who were hypocrites in baptism will be, in penitence, men of solid faith. Nor be troubled, thinking that there is any difference between the just man and the penitent, and that the lower rank indeed grants pardon, but takes away the crown. For there is but one reward. He who shall stand at the right hand will enter into the kingdoms of heaven.

By these counsels your swineherds are richer than our shepherds, and he-goats drag along with them very many she-goats. Horses maddened after women have been made; as soon as they see women they neigh, and, oh the shame! They console their impatience with examples from the Scriptures. But even those wretched little women—wretched, yet not to be pitied—chanting the words of their teacher, "For what does God require but seed?" have lost not only chastity but even shame, and defend with greater impudence the lust which they practice. You have besides in your army many reserve troops, you have jesters and light-armed skirmishers in your garrisons, fat, dressed up, sleek, shouters, who defend you with fists and heels. Nobles yield the road to you, the rich kiss your head. For unless you had come, drunkards and belchers could not have entered paradise. Well done, valor—or rather, vices—you have in your camps also Amazons, with bared breast and naked arm and knee, coming against men and provoking them to the combat of lust.

And because you are a wealthy head of household, in your aviaries are nourished not turtledoves, but hoopoes, which fly about entirely in the haunts of foul pleasure. Tear me apart, cast me down, throw at me whatever charges you wish, accuse me of luxury and delights. You will love me the more, if I should be such a one; for I shall be of your herd.

But I will speak to you, who have blotted out by the confession of Christ the blasphemy written on your brow. Mighty city, city mistress of the world, city praised by the voice of the Apostle, interpret your own name. Rome is, among the Greeks, a name of strength, or, according to the Hebrews, of sublimity. Keep what you are called; let valor make you exalted, not pleasure make you base. The curse which the Savior threatened against you in the Apocalypse you can escape through repentance, having the example of the Ninevites. Beware the name of Jovinian, which is derived from the idol Jove. The Capitol lies squalid, the temples of Jove and its ceremonies have fallen. Why should his name and his vices flourish among you still? Even under the kings, and under Numa Pompilius, your ancestors more readily embraced the continence of Pythagoras than, under the consuls, they embraced the luxury of Epicurus.