Letters 41 to 50: Leaving Rome and the Apology Against Jovinian

Brief is the little question which you sent, and open is the answer. For if, concerning what is written in the Gospel: "Whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come", Novatian affirms that no one can sin against the Holy Spirit except one who is a Christian and afterward denies him; it is manifest that the Jews who at that time were blaspheming were not held guilty of the sin of blasphemy: for indeed, being wicked tenants, having killed the Prophets, they were plotting the death of the Lord, and were so far lost that, in order to save them, the Son of God answered that he had come.

Whence, from the whole order of that Scripture itself, it must be proved that the unforgivable blasphemy is not said of those who, driven by torments and disemboweled by various tortures, would have denied the Lord; but of those who, when they see in the works of power the deeds of God, calumniate and cry out that it is the power of a demon, and that all the signs which were done pertain not to the divine majesty but to the devil. Whence also our Saviour, throughout the entire argument of his reply, does this, that he might teach that Satan cannot be cast out by Satan, and that his kingdom is not divided against itself. For since it is the devil's aim to injure God's creature, how could it be of the same will to heal the sick, and to drive himself out of possessed bodies?

Let Novatian, then, prove that any of those who were compelled to sacrifice before the tribunal of the judge answered that all the things written in the Gospel were accomplished not by the Son of God but by Beelzebub, prince of demons, and then he will be able to prove that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable.

2. But that we may also inquire something more sharply, let him answer, what it is to speak against the Son of Man, and to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. For I indeed assert, according to his own sense, that those who denied Christ under persecution spoke against the Son of Man, and did not blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. For he who is asked whether he is a Christian, and answers that he is not a Christian, does indeed, by denying Christ—that is, the Son of Man—do no injury to the Holy Spirit.

But if, by denying Christ, he also denied the Spirit, let the Heretic explain how he who has denied the Son of Man does not sin against the Spirit. Or if he thinks the Holy Spirit here is to be understood as the Father, no mention was made of the Father by the one denying, when he denied. Peter the Apostle, at the time when, terrified by the maidservant's question, he denied the Lord, does he seem to have committed sin against the Son of Man, or against the Holy Spirit? If he wishes ridiculously to interpret what he said, "I know not the man," as meaning that he did not deny Christ, but a man; he will make the Saviour a liar, who had foretold that he himself, that is, the Son of God, would be denied.

But if he denied the Son of God, whence also he wept bitterly, and afterward effaced his threefold denial by a threefold confession, it is manifest that the sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven for this reason, that it involves blasphemy: that when you see God in works of power, you calumniate him as Beelzebub in his deeds. Let him, then, show that any one who denied Christ called him Beelzebub, and I will freely yield the point, that one who denies cannot obtain pardon after his fall. It is one thing to yield to torments and to deny that one is a Christian; another to call Christ a devil, as the Scripture itself, and its context, read more attentively, will be able to show you.

3. Indeed it should have been discussed at greater length: but since we cannot deny our presence to friends who have gathered at our little lodging, and it seemed altogether presumptuous not to answer you at once, we have compressed a broad discussion into a brief discourse, so that we might dictate not so much a letter as a little commentary.

Ambrose, by whose supplying of paper, expenses, and secretaries, our truly Adamantius and Chalcenterus unfolded such innumerable books, relates in a certain letter which he wrote to the same man from Athens, that he never took food in Origen's presence without a reading; never went to sleep unless one of the brothers recited the sacred Scriptures aloud. This he did by day and by night, so that reading might follow prayer, and prayer follow reading.

2. What have we, creatures of the belly, ever done to compare? Whom, if the second hour finds us reading, we yawn: rubbing our faces with our hand, we restrain our stomachs; and, as if after much labor, we again occupy ourselves with worldly business. I pass over dinners, by which the mind, weighed down, is oppressed. I am ashamed to speak of the frequency of visiting, by which either we ourselves go daily to others, or we wait for others coming to us.

Then we proceed to talk, conversation is worn thin, the absent are torn apart, another's life is described, and, biting one another, we are consumed by one another. Such idle pursuits occupy and dismiss us. But when friends have departed, we compute our accounts. Now anger clothes us with the mask of a lion; now excessive care, destined to last for many years, plans ahead. Nor do we recall the Gospel, saying: "Fool, this night they will take your soul from you: and the things which you have prepared, whose shall they be?" Clothes are sought not for use alone, but for luxury. Wherever there is profit, the foot moves faster, speech is quicker, the ear more attentive. If a loss (as often happens in household affairs) is reported, the countenance is weighed down with sorrow. We rejoice over a coin, we are saddened over a farthing. Whence, since in one man the appearance of moods is so diverse, the Prophet prays to the Lord, saying: "Lord, in your city scatter their image".

For since we were created in the image and likeness of God, by our own fault we superimpose upon ourselves very many masks. And just as on the stages of the theater one and the same actor now shows himself as Hercules, strong, now is broken soft into Venus, now trembling into Cybele: so also we (who, if we were not of the world, would be hated by the world) have as many likenesses of persons as we have sins.

3. Wherefore, since we have already passed by many stretches of life tossing about, and our ship has now been shaken by the whirlwind of storms, now pierced by the mockery of the rocks, as soon as it is possible, let us enter, as it were, some harbor—the retreats of the countryside. There, bread of coarse grain, and a vegetable watered by our own hands, and milk, the delicacy of the countryside, provide food that is cheap indeed, but innocent. Living thus, sleep will not call us away from prayer, nor satiety from reading.

If it is summer, the shade of a tree will provide a retreat. If autumn, the very mildness of the air, and leaves strewn beneath, will offer a place of rest. In spring the field is painted with flowers, and among the plaintive birds, Psalms will be sung the more sweetly. If there is cold and wintry snows, I will not buy wood, but will keep vigil, or sleep, the warmer for it. Certainly, as far as I know, I shall not be cold at any cheaper cost. Let Rome keep her tumults to herself, let the arena rage, let the circus go mad, let the theaters run riot, and since we must speak of our own people, let the senate of matrons be visited daily.

For us, it is good to cling to the Lord, and to place our hope in the Lord God: so that, when this poverty shall have been exchanged for the kingdoms of heaven, we may break forth into the cry: "For what is there for me in heaven, and what have I desired upon earth beside you?" Whereby, namely, since we shall find such great things in heaven, we may grieve that we sought small and perishable things on earth. Farewell.

That we may console the absence of our bodies by converse of the Spirit: let each one do what he can. You send gifts; we send back Epistles of thanks. Yet so that, since it is the office of veiled virgins, we may show that even in the little gifts themselves there are certain mysteries. The sack is a sign of prayer and fasting. The stools, that the virgin should not move her feet abroad. The tapers, that with the light kindled, the coming of the bridegroom may be awaited. The cups show the mortification of the flesh, and a mind always prepared for martyrdom. "For how excellent is the cup of the Lord, which maketh drunk!" And that you also offer to matrons small fly-whisks, for fanning away small creatures, is an elegant signification, that luxury ought to be quickly extinguished; because dying flies destroy the sweetness of ointment. Let this be the type of virgins: this the figure of matrons.

But to us, though perversely, your gifts are fitting: it is proper for the idle to sit, for penitents to lie in sackcloth, for drinkers to have cups. And on account of nightly fears too, and minds ever dreading the evil of conscience, it will be pleasant to have lighted tapers as well.

If I should think that thanks could be rendered to you by me, I should not be wise. God is able, in place of my own person, to restore to your holy soul what it deserves. For I, unworthy, could never even estimate nor desire that you should bestow upon me so great an affection in Christ. And although some think me a wicked man, and overwhelmed with every kind of shame, and even these small things are too little for my sins: nevertheless you do well in that, out of your own mind, you think even the bad to be good. For it is dangerous to judge another's servant, and there is no easy pardon for having spoken evil of the upright. That day will come, will come, in which you too will grieve with me that not a few are burning.

2. I am infamous, I am a shape-shifter and slippery: I am a liar, and one who deceives by the art of Satan.

For what is safer: either to have believed or feigned these things of the innocent, or to have refused to believe even of the guilty? Some kissed my hands, and with viper's mouth detracted: they grieved with their lips, they rejoiced in heart. The Lord saw and derided them, and kept wretched me, His servant, for the future judgment along with them. One slandered my gait and my laughter; another detracted my countenance; this one, in simplicity, suspected something else. For nearly three years certainly I lived with them. A great crowd of virgins often surrounded me. I expounded the divine Books, as I was able, often to several of them. Reading brought constancy, constancy brought familiarity, familiarity brought trust. Let them say what they ever felt in me otherwise than became a Christian. Did I receive anyone's money? Did I refuse gifts small or great? Did anyone's coin ever ring in my hand? Was there any sidelong speech, any wanton glance?

Nothing else is objected against me except my sex, and this is never objected except when Paula sets out for Jerusalem. Granted, they believed the liar: why do they not believe the one who denies? The man himself is the same who was before: he who lately spoke of him as guilty now confesses him innocent, and surely torments express the truth more than laughter does: except that what is either feigned is gladly heard, or, if not feigned, is more readily believed because it is urged to be feigned.

3. Before I knew the house of holy Paula, the zeal of the whole city was unanimous in my favor. By the judgment of almost all I was deemed worthy of the highest priesthood. Damasus of blessed memory, my words were his. I was called holy: I was called humble and eloquent. Did I ever enter the house of any wanton woman? Did silken garments, gleaming gems, a painted face, or the ambition of gold ever seize me?

There was no other matron in Rome who could subdue my mind, except one mourning and fasting, squalid with filth, almost blinded with weeping; whom the sun often found, through continual nights, imploring the mercy of the Lord. Whose song was the Psalter, whose speech was the Gospel, whose delights were continence, whose life was fasting. No other could delight me, except her whom I never saw eating. But after I began to venerate, to cherish, to look up to her for the merit of her chastity, all my virtues at once deserted me.

4. O envy, biting from the first against you! O cunning of Satan, ever pursuing the holy! No other women gave Rome matter for gossip except Paula and Melanium, who, having despised their possessions and abandoned their pledges of children, raised the cross of the Lord as a kind of banner of piety. If they sought baths, chose perfumes, had riches and widowhood as material for luxury and license, they would be called ladies, and saints.

Now, in sackcloth and ashes, they wish to appear beautiful, and to go down into the fire of hell with fastings and squalor: forsooth it is not permitted to them to perish, with the applause of the people, along with the crowd. If the Gentiles found fault with this life, if the Jews had the consolation of not pleasing those to whom Christ is displeasing—but now, alas! Christian men, neglecting the care of their own homes and overlooking the beam in their own eye, seek the mote in another's eye. They tear apart the holy purpose, and think it a remedy for their own punishment if no one is holy: if all are slandered: if there is a crowd of the perishing: if there is a multitude of the sinning.

5. It pleases you to wash daily: another thinks such cleanliness filth. You belch up the heath-cock, and boast of the sturgeon you have consumed: I fill my belly with beans. Troops of laughing revelers delight you: Paula and Melanium, mourning, delight me.

You desire what belongs to others: they despise what is their own. Wines steeped in honey delight you: they drink cold water, sweeter to them. You think you lose whatever you have not, in the present, had, eaten, devoured: they desire things to come, and believe that what is written is true. Granted, foolishly and vainly, as far as those are concerned whom the resurrection of bodies has persuaded: what is that to you? To us, on the contrary, your life is displeasing. Good for you, be fat: leanness and pallor delight me. You think such as we wretched: we think you more wretched. Like is repaid with like, and we seem mad to one another in turn.

6. These things, my lady Asella, I wrote in haste, weeping and grieving, when I was already boarding the ship, and I give thanks to my God, that I am worthy to be hated by the world.

But pray that I may return from Babylon to Jerusalem, lest Nebuchadnezzar rule over me, but rather Jesus the son of Josedech: let Ezra come, whose name is interpreted "helper," and bring me back to my homeland. Foolish I was, who wished to sing the Song of the Lord in a foreign land, and, having deserted Mount Sinai, begged for the help of Egypt. I did not remember the Gospel, that whoever goes out from Jerusalem straightway falls among robbers, is despoiled, wounded, slain. But although the Priest and the Levite may despise, that Samaritan is merciful, who, when it was said to him, "Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil", refusing the devil, did not deny that he was a Samaritan; because him whom we call a keeper, the Hebrews call a Samaritan. Some prattle that I am a sorcerer: I acknowledge, as a servant, the title of faith. They call him a magician, and my Lord was called by the Jews the same. A seducer, an apostle too was called.

Let no temptation take hold of me, save what is common to man. How small a part of the anguish have I endured, I who serve as a soldier for the cross? They have imputed to me the infamy of a false charge: but I know that through good report and evil report one comes to the kingdoms of heaven.

7. Greet Paula and Eustochium, mine in Christ, whether the world will or no. Greet mother Albina, and sister Marcella, Marcellina too, and holy Felicity, and say to them: We shall stand together before the tribunal of Christ; there it will appear with what mind each one has lived. Remember me, an example of chastity, and a mark of virginity; and calm the waves of the sea with your prayers.

Charity has no measure, and impatience knows no bound, and desire cannot endure. Whence we too, forgetful of our own strength, and thinking not what we can do, but only what we wish, desire to teach our teacher as disciples; and, as the common proverb goes, "the sow instructing Minerva." You who first cast the spark upon our tinder, who exhorted us to this pursuit both by word and by example, and who, like a hen, gathered your chicks under your wings: will you now suffer us, motherless, to fly freely, and to fear the terror of the hawk, and to dread every shadow of birds flying past?

Therefore, since this alone is what we, being absent, can do, we pour forth complaining prayers; and we attest our desire not so much by tears as by wailings, that you would give back our Marcella to us, and not suffer her, that gentle one, that sweet one, sweeter than all honey and sweetness, to be harsh among those women, and to wrinkle her brow in sadness, whom by her own affability she has stirred up to a like pursuit of life.

2. Surely if the things we ask for are better, our desire is not shameless. If all the voices of the Scriptures agree with our judgment, we do not act boldly in summoning you to that to which you yourself have most often exhorted us. The first voice of God to Abraham: "Go forth," He said, "out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and go into the land which I shall show thee".

The Patriarch, to whom the first promise concerning Christ was made, is bidden to leave the Chaldeans, to leave the city of confusion, and Rooboth, that is, its broad places: to leave the plain of Sennaar, in which the tower of pride was raised up even to heaven: and after the waves of this world, after the rivers upon which the saints sat and wept when they remembered Sion, after the heavy whirlpool of Chobar, from which Ezekiel, lifted up by the hair of his head, is carried all the way to Jerusalem; that he might dwell in the land of promise, which is watered not like Egypt from below, but from above: nor does it make herbs the food of the languishing; but it awaits the early and the latter rain from heaven. This land is mountainous, and set on high: as much as it is free from the delights of the world, so much the greater delights of the spirit does it have.

Finally, Mary too, the mother of the Lord, after the promise was made to her by the angel, and she understood her womb to be the house of the Son of God, left the plains and went up to the hill country. From this city, once the foreign enemy was overcome, and the boldness of the diabolical brow struck down, after he fell upon his face, a throng of exultant souls went forth: and a chorus of ten thousand, singing together, proclaimed the victory of our David. In this city the Angel, holding a sword and laying waste the whole city of impiety, marked out the temple of the Lord in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite king: already then signifying the Church of Christ, arising not in Israel, but among the Gentiles. Return to Genesis, and you will find Melchisedech, king of Salem, the prince of this city: who, even then, in the type of Christ, offered bread and wine, and dedicated the Christian mystery in the blood and body of the Savior.

3. Perhaps in your silent mind you will find fault, that we do not follow the order of the Scriptures; but here and there, and as anything comes in our way, our turbid discourse touches upon it. And at the outset we testified that love has no order, and impatience knows no measure. Whence also in the Song of Songs it is enjoined as though a difficult thing: "Set love in order in me": and now we say the same, that we go astray not from ignorance, but from affection. Finally, that we may set forth something still more disorderly, matters more ancient must be recalled. In this city, nay, in this very spot, it is said that Adam both dwelt and died.

Whence also the place in which our Lord was crucified is called Calvary, namely because there the skull of the ancient man is said to be buried, so that the second Adam, that is, the blood of Christ dripping from the cross, might wash away the sins of the first Adam and of the prostrate first-formed man; and then that saying of the Apostle might be fulfilled: "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light". How many prophets, how many holy men this city has sent forth, it would be long to recount. The whole of our mystery is native to this province and city. In three names it displays the faith of the Trinity. It is called Jebus, and Salem, and Jerusalem.

The first name means "trodden down"; the second, "peace"; the third, "vision of peace." For little by little we come to the end, and after being trodden down we are raised up to the vision of peace: from which peace Solomon, that is, the peaceful one, was born in it, and his place was made in peace. And as a figure of Christ, under the etymology of the city, he received the name Lord of lords and King of kings. What shall we say of David and all his progeny, who reigned in this city? As much as Judea excels other provinces, so much does this city excel all Judea. And (to put it more compactly) the glory of the whole province is claimed for the metropolis; and whatever praise belongs to the members is all referred to the head.

4. Long since sensing you eager to burst into speech, the very letters of the page perceive it, and the paper understands the question coming against it.

For you will answer, and say, that this was formerly so, when "the Lord loved the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob": and her foundations were in the holy mountains: although these things too may be interpreted more deeply. But after that voice of the rising Lord thundered forth: "Your house shall be left unto you desolate"; and he tearfully prophesied its ruin, saying: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee: how often would I have gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not. Behold, your house shall be left unto you desolate": and after the veil of the temple was rent, and Jerusalem was surrounded by an army, and was defiled by the Lord's blood, then even the guardianship of angels and the grace of Christ withdrew from her.

Finally, even Josephus, who is a native writer of the Jews, asserts that at the time when the Lord was crucified, voices of heavenly Powers broke forth from the innermost recesses of the Temple, saying: "Let us depart from these abodes". From these and other things it appears that where grace abounded, there sin abounded still more. And after the Apostles heard: "Go teach all nations"; and the Apostles themselves said: "It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you: but seeing you have rejected it, behold, we turn to the Gentiles"; then the whole mystery of Judea, and the ancient familiarity with God, was through the Apostles transferred to the nations.

5. A strong argument indeed, and one that could shake even those who have touched something of the Scriptures: but it is very easily resolved. For the Lord would never have wept over her as she fell, unless he loved her. He wept also for Lazarus, because he loved him.

And yet know this at the outset, that it was not the fault of the place, but of the men. But because the slaying of the people is the captivity of the city, therefore the city was destroyed, that the people might be punished; therefore the Temple was thrown down, that the typical sacrifices might be taken away. But as far as the place is concerned, through the course of time it is now much narrower than it was before. The Jews once venerated the Holy of Holies, because there were the Cherubim, and the mercy-seat, and the Ark of the Covenant, the manna, and Aaron's rod, and the golden altar. Does not the sepulchre of the Lord seem more venerable to you? Which, as often as we enter it, so often do we behold the Savior lying in the linen cloth: and lingering there a little while, again we see the angel sitting at his feet, and the napkin folded at his head.

The glory of this sepulchre, long before it was hewn by Joseph, we know was prophesied by the oracle of Isaiah, saying: "And his rest shall be honor": meaning namely that the place of the Lord's burial should be honored by all.

6. But you will say, how is it that we read in the Apocalypse of John: "And the beast that ascends out of the abyss shall kill them (doubtless the prophets), and their bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified". For, you say, if the great city in which the Lord was crucified is none other than Jerusalem; and where the Lord was crucified is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt; therefore Jerusalem, in which the Lord was crucified, is Sodom and Egypt. First we would have you know that all sacred Scripture cannot be contrary to itself; and above all that one book does not disagree with itself: and to add further, the very same passage of the very same book.

For in the Apocalypse, from which you have just now brought forward a testimony, about ten verses earlier it is written: "Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is outside the temple, cast out, and measure it not, because it is given unto the Gentiles, and they shall tread the holy city under foot forty-two months". For if the Apocalypse was written by John long after the Lord's passion, and in it Jerusalem is called the holy city, how then is it again spiritually called Sodom and Egypt? Nor can you at once say that the heavenly Jerusalem, which is yet to come, is called holy, and that the one which has fallen is called Sodom, because it is spoken of the future, that the beast which is to ascend from the abyss will make war against the two prophets, and will conquer them and kill them, and their bodies shall lie in the street of the great city.

Of which city it is also written at the end of the same book: "And the city is laid out foursquare, and the length thereof is as great as the breadth: and he measured the city with the golden reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height thereof are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, a hundred and forty-four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. And the structure of its wall was of jasper stone. But the city itself was of pure gold," and so forth. Where there is a square, there can be no talk of length and breadth separately. And what sort of measure is this, that the length and breadth should be as great as the height, and the walls of jasper stone, and the whole city of pure gold, and its foundations and streets of precious stones, and twelve gates gleaming with pearls?

7. Since therefore these things cannot be taken in a carnal sense (for it is absurd that a city's length and breadth should be proclaimed for twelve thousand furlongs, as great as its height also), each point must be understood spiritually: and the great city, which of old Cain built, and named after the name of his son, is to be understood as this world, which the devil, the accuser of his brethren, and the fratricide doomed to perish, built up with vices, founded upon crimes, filled with iniquity: which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. Of which Sodom it is written: Sodom shall be restored to her former state; meaning namely that the world is to be restored as it was before. For we cannot believe that Sodom is to be rebuilt again, and the others, namely Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboim, but that they are to be left in perpetual ashes. But Egypt we never read as standing for Jerusalem, but always for this world.

And since it would be long to gather countless examples from the Scriptures, let us bring forward one testimony, where this world is most plainly called Egypt. In the Catholic Epistle, Jude the Apostle, brother of James, writes, saying: "I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not".

And lest you should think this is said of Jesus the son of Nave, it immediately follows: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." And that you may believe that wherever Egypt and Sodom and Gomorrah are named together, not places but this world is meant, he immediately joins the example: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." And what need is there to seek further proofs, when after the passion and resurrection of the Lord the Evangelist Matthew records: "And the rocks were rent, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose: and coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city, and appeared unto many"?

Nor is the heavenly Jerusalem at once to be understood in this passage, as many absurdly suppose, since there could have been no sign among men of the Lord's resurrection, if the bodies of the saints had been seen in the heavenly Jerusalem. Since, therefore, both the Evangelists and all the Scriptures call Jerusalem the holy city; and the Psalmist bids us worship in the place where his feet stood; do not allow it to be called Sodom and Egypt, by which the Lord forbids us to swear, because it is the city of the great King.

8. They call the land accursed, because it drank the blood of the Lord. And how do they think those places blessed, in which Peter and Paul, leaders of the Christian army, poured out their blood for Christ? If the confession of servants and men is glorious, why should not the confession of the Lord and God be glorious?

And we venerate the tombs of martyrs everywhere, and applying the holy ash to our eyes, if it be permitted, we touch it even with our mouth: and do some think the monument in which the Lord was laid ought to be disregarded? If we do not believe ourselves, let us at least believe the devil and his angels, who, as often as they are cast out from possessed bodies before that place, tremble as though standing in the sight of Christ's tribunal, roar, and too late lament having crucified him whom they fear. If after the passion of the Lord (as that accursed voice proclaims) this is a detestable place, what did Paul mean by hastening to Jerusalem, that he might keep Pentecost there? Who, to those who resisted him, said: "What do ye, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus".

What of the other Saints and illustrious men, whose vows and offerings, after the preaching of Christ, were brought to the brethren who were at Jerusalem?

9. It would be long now to run through, from the Lord's ascension to the present day, age by age, how many bishops, how many martyrs, how many men eminent in ecclesiastical learning have come to Jerusalem, thinking they would have less of religion, less of knowledge, and would not, as it is said, have received the finishing touch of virtues, unless they had worshiped Christ in those very places from which the Gospel first flashed forth from the gibbet. Surely, if even the illustrious Orator thinks someone deserving of blame, I know not who, because he learned Greek letters not at Athens, but at Lilybaeum, and Latin not at Rome, but in Sicily—namely because each province has something of its own which another cannot equally possess—why do we suppose that anyone, without our Athens, has attained to the heights of study?

10. Nor do we say this because we deny that the kingdom of God is within us, and that holy men are also in other regions; but we assert this above all, that those who are the first in the whole world are gathered together here alike. To these places we have come not as the first, but as the last; so that we behold in them the first of all nations. Certainly a flower and a most precious stone among the ornaments of the Church is the choir of Monks and Virgins. Whoever has been first in Gaul hastens hither. The Briton, cut off from our world, if he has made progress in religion, having left behind the setting sun, seeks a place known to him only by fame and by the report of the Scriptures. Why should we mention the Armenians, why the Persians, why the peoples of India and Ethiopia, and Egypt itself nearby, fruitful in Monks, Pontus and Cappadocia, Syria Coele and Mesopotamia, and all the swarms of the East?

Which, according to the saying of the Savior, who says, "Wheresoever the body shall be, thither will the eagles be gathered together". They flock together to these places, and show us a pattern of diverse virtues. The voice indeed is different, but the religion is one. There are almost as many choirs of those singing psalms as there are diversities of nations. Among these (which is indeed the first virtue among Christians) there is nothing arrogant, nothing of the haughtiness of continence: there is a contest of humility among all. Whoever is last is thought to be first. In dress there is no distinction, no admiration. However one chooses to go about, it is neither a matter of detraction nor of praise. Fasting also raises no one above another; nor is abstinence deferred to, nor is moderate fullness condemned. Each one stands or falls to his own Lord. No one judges another, lest he be judged by the Lord. And what is common in many provinces, that men tear at one another with their own teeth, is utterly unknown here.

Far off is luxury, far off is pleasure. So many are the places of prayer in that very city, that a day is not sufficient to go round them all. 10. But that we may come to the little village of Christ, and the lodging of Mary (for each one praises more what he possesses), with what speech, with what voice can we describe to you the cave of the Savior? And that manger, in which the little infant cried, is to be honored rather by silence than by feeble speech. Where are the broad porticoes? Where the gilded ceilings? Where the houses clothed by the torments of the wretched, and by the labor of the condemned? Where the basilicas built like palaces, out of the wealth of private persons, so that a vile little body of man might walk about more preciously, and, as though nothing in the world could be more ornate, might prefer to look upon his own things rather than upon heaven?

Behold, in this small hole of the earth, the Founder of the heavens was born: here He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, here He was seen by shepherds, here He was pointed out by a star, here He was adored by the Magi. And this place, I think, is holier than the Tarpeian Rock, which, struck by lightning from heaven so many times, shows that it displeased the Lord.

11. Read the Apocalypse of John, and consider what is sung concerning the woman clothed in purple, and the blasphemy written on her forehead, the seven hills, the many waters, and the fall of Babylon. "Go out, says the Lord, from her, my people, and be not partakers of her sins, and receive not of her plagues". Returning also to Jeremiah, note likewise what is written: "Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and let every man save his own soul. For Babylon the great has fallen, has fallen, and has become the dwelling of demons, and the abode of every unclean spirit".

There is indeed the holy Church there, there are the trophies of the Apostles and Martyrs; and the true confession of Christ; there is the faith preached by the Apostle, and, with paganism trodden underfoot, the name of Christian daily raising itself on high: but the very ambition, power, and greatness of the city, to be seen and to see, to be greeted and to greet, to praise and to detract, either to hear or to speak, and to see, even unwillingly, so great a throng of men, are foreign to the purpose and quiet of Monks. For either we see those coming to us, and lose our silence; or we do not see them, and are accused of pride. And sometimes, in order to return the visit to those who visit us, we go to proud doors, and among the tongues of gnawing servants, we enter gilded doorposts. But in the little village of Christ, as we said above, there is all rusticity, and outside of Psalms there is silence.

Wherever you turn, the plowman holding the plow-handle sings Alleluia. The sweating reaper calls himself to Psalms, and the vine-dresser, trimming with curved sickle, sings something of David. These are the songs in this province: these, as is commonly said, are the love-songs. This is the shepherds' whistling: these are the tools of tillage.

12. But what are we doing, thinking not of what is fitting, but seeing only what we desire? O when will that time come, when a breathless traveler shall bring the news that our Marcella has landed on the shore of Palestine: and all the choirs of Monks, all the ranks of virgins will resound? Already we long to run to meet her: and, not waiting for a carriage, to carry our body swiftly with our feet. We shall hold her hands, we shall behold her face; and we shall scarcely be torn away from the longed-for embrace. Will there not then be that day, when it will be allowed us to enter the cave of the Savior?

To weep in the sepulcher of the Lord with the sister, to weep with the mother? Then to kiss the wood of the Cross, and on the Mount of Olives, with the Lord ascending, to be lifted up in wish and in soul? To see Lazarus coming forth bound with bandages; and the streams of the Jordan, purer for the washing of the Lord? Thence to go on to the sheepfolds of the shepherds: to pray at the Mausoleum of David? To see even now the Prophet Amos on his rock, sounding the shepherd's horn? To hasten either to the tabernacles or to the memorials of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and also of the three illustrious women? To see the fountain, in which the eunuch was baptized by Philip? To go on to Samaria, and to adore together the ashes of John the Baptist, and also of Elisha and Abdias? To enter the caves, in which, in the time of persecution and famine, the bands of the Prophets were nourished?

We shall go to Nazareth, and, according to the interpretation of its name, we shall see the flower of Galilee. Not far from there Cana will be seen, in which the water was turned into wine. We shall go on to Itabyrium (Mount Tabor) and we shall behold the tabernacles of the Savior, not as Peter once wished, with Moses and Elijah, but with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Thence we shall come to the sea of Genesareth, and we shall see, out of the five and seven loaves, five thousand and four thousand men fed in the desert. The town of Naim will appear, at whose gates the widow's son was raised. And Hermon will be seen, and the torrent of Endor, in which Sisara was overcome. Capharnaum too, familiar with the signs of the Lord, and all Galilee alike will be seen.

And then, with Christ accompanying us, when through Shiloh and Bethel and the other places, in which churches have been raised like certain banners of the Lord's victories, we shall have returned to our cave, we shall sing continually, we shall weep often, we shall pray unceasingly, and, wounded by the dart of the Savior, we shall say together: "I found him whom my soul sought: I will hold him, and I will not let him go".

Having read the discourse of Your Worship, which your kindness bestowed upon me unexpectedly, I rejoiced indeed at the testimony of an honorable and eloquent man: but, returning to myself, I grieved sufficiently, that I, unworthy of such praises and such acclaim, am rather burdened than lifted up by it. For you know that our doctrine holds the banner of humility, and that by walking through low places, we climb to the heights. How small then, or how great, that I should merit the testimony of a learned voice; that the palm of eloquence should be conferred on me by him who, by writing most eloquently, has deterred me from writing? Yet I must be bold, so that charity, which seeks not its own but the things of its neighbor, may render the offices of greeting, since it cannot fill the place of a teacher.

2. I congratulate you and your holy and venerable sister Serenilla, who, φερώνυμος true to her name, having trodden down the waves of the world, has reached the tranquil waters of Christ: although this also was predestined for you by the omen of your name. For we read that holy Daniel too was called a man of desires, and a friend of God, because he desired to know His mysteries. And so, what the venerable Paula begged me to do, I do of my own accord; and I exhort and beseech you both, through the love of the Lord, that you grant us your presence, and, by the occasion of the holy Places, enrich us with so great a gift. Certainly, if our company should displease you, still to have adored the place where the feet of the Lord stood is a part of faith; and, as it were, to have seen the fresh traces of His birth and of His cross and passion.

3. Of my little works, since very many have flown out of their own nest, and have been published, with rash honor, in editions, I have sent nothing; lest perchance I should send the very same things you already have. But if you should wish to borrow copies, you will be able to obtain them either from holy Marcella, who remains on the Aventine, or from Domnio, the Lot of our time, a most holy man. But I, awaiting your presence, will either give you the whole when you are here, or, if any difficulties should hinder this, I will gladly send whatever you shall direct.

I have written a book Concerning Illustrious Men, from the Apostles down to our own age, imitating Tranquillus, and the Greek Apollonius: and after a catalogue of very many, I have placed myself too at the end of the volume, as it were a miscarriage and the least of all Christians; where it was necessary for me to note briefly what I have written down to the fourteenth year of the Emperor Theodosius: which book, when you have obtained it from the above-mentioned persons, whatever you find lacking in the index, I will have gradually written out for you, if you wish.

The reason I have not written to you until now was your silence. For I feared that if I wrote to one who was silent, you would think me troublesome rather than dutiful. But now, provoked by your most sweet letters, and by letters of such a kind as would provoke a former fellow-student, comrade and friend to the philosophy of our doctrine, I receive you, as they say, with open arms; and I prepare a defender of my little works—provided, however, that I first have you as a favorably-disposed judge; nay rather, that I first instruct my own advocate concerning all the things that are alleged against me. For this both your Tully says; and before him, in a brief and single volume, Antonius wrote, that the first requisite for victory is to learn diligently the case for which you are about to speak.

2. Certain persons reprove me because in the books which I wrote against Jovinian, I was excessive either in the praise of virgins or in the disparagement of marriage; and they say that it amounts to a kind of condemnation of matrimony to preach chastity to such a degree that no comparison seems left between a wife and a virgin. If I remember the problem rightly, this is the point of contention between Jovinian and us: that he makes marriage equal to virginity, while we subordinate it; he says there is little or no difference, we say there is much. In short, it was on this account, with you as champion after the Lord, that he was condemned—because he dared to compare marriage with perpetual chastity. Or if virgin and married woman are thought to be the same thing, why could Rome not bear to hear this very word as a sacrilege? A virgin is born of a man, not a man of a virgin.

There can be no middle ground: either my opinion must be followed, or Jovinian's. If I am reproved for subordinating marriage to virginity, then let him who makes them equal be praised. But if he who thought them equal was condemned, let his condemnation be a testimony in favor of my work. If men of the world are indignant at being in a lower rank than virgins, I marvel that clerics and monks and the continent do not praise that very thing which they themselves do. They deprive themselves of their wives in order to imitate the chastity of virgins; and yet they want married women to be the very same thing as virgins? Then let them either join themselves to the wives whom they have renounced, or, if they have abstained, let them, even by their silence, confess that what they preferred to the work of marriage is better.

Or, a novice in the Scriptures, reading the sacred volumes now for the first time, unable to preserve the line, and, so to speak, the thin thread of speech between virginity and marriage? Doubtless I did not know the saying: "Be not overmuch righteous": and while I protect one flank, I am wounded on the other; and, to speak more plainly, while I fight in close order against Jovinian, my back has been pierced by the Manichaean. Did I not, I ask, prefix these very statements at the very beginning of my work? "For we, who follow not the doctrine of Marcion and Manichaeus, do not disparage marriage. Nor, deceived by the error of Tatian, chief of the Encratites, do we think all intercourse foul—he who condemns and rejects not only marriage but even 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 God's first sentence: 'Increase and multiply, and fill the earth'. But we so accept marriage that we prefer virginity, which is born of 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 fruits and produce are preferred to the root and leaves, to stalk and ear? As fruit comes from the tree, grain from the stalk, so virginity comes from marriage. The hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold fruit, though born of one soil and one seed, yet differ greatly in number.

Thirty is referred to marriage, because the very joining of the fingers, embracing and binding itself as it were with a soft kiss, depicts husband and spouse. Sixty, however, refers to widows, because they are placed in straits and tribulation. Hence they are pressed down by the upper finger: because the greater the difficulty of abstaining from the allurements of a once-experienced pleasure, the greater the reward. Further, the hundredfold number (I ask the reader to attend carefully) is transferred from the left hand to the right: and indeed with the same fingers, but not the same hand, with which on the left married women and widows are signified—making a circle, it expresses the crown of virginity."

3. I ask you, does he who says these things condemn marriage? We have called virginity gold, marriage silver. We have set forth the hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold fruit as born of one soil and one seed, though differing greatly in number.

And will any reader be so unfair as to judge me not by my own words but by his own opinion? And surely we were much more lenient toward marriages than almost all the Latin and Greek commentators, who refer the hundredfold number to martyrs, the sixtyfold to virgins, the thirtyfold to widows: so that, according to their opinion, husbands are excluded altogether from the good soil and from the seed of the householder. But lest I, cautious at the beginning, may perhaps have been careless in the rest: did I not, after the division of the work, when I came to the questions, immediately add: "I ask you, virgins of both sexes and the continent, husbands also and those twice-married, to help my endeavors with your prayers"? Jovinian is the common enemy of all these. Who need the prayers of all these, and who beg them as helpers of my work, able to condemn them with the error of Manichaeus?

4. Let us hasten to the rest.

For the brevity of a letter does not permit lingering longer over each point. Interpreting that testimony of the Apostle: "The wife has not power of her own body, but the husband: likewise also the husband has not power of his own body, but the wife", I added this: "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: 'It is good,' he says, 'for a man not to touch a woman or wife': as though there were danger in touching her, as though he who touched her would not escape. Hence also Joseph, because the Egyptian woman wished to touch him, fled from her hands, casting off his garment.

But because he who has once taken a wife cannot abstain except by mutual consent, nor give a bill of divorce to one who does not sin, let him render to his spouse what is due, because he bound himself of his own will, so that he would be compelled to render it." He who says it is the Lord's precept that wives not be put away, and that without consent, "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder"—can this man be said to condemn marriage? Again, in what follows: "But everyone," he says, "has his proper gift from God. One after this manner, another after that". Expounding this saying, we added this: "What I wish is clear. But since there are diverse gifts in the Church, I grant marriage too, lest I seem to condemn nature. At the same time I 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 by no means have said, after the precept of continence: 'But everyone has his proper gift from God: one after this manner, another after that.' Where there is a property of individuals, there is on both sides a diversity. I grant that marriage too is a gift of God, but between gift and gift there is a great diversity. Finally, the Apostle also says of a certain woman doing penance after incest: 'On the contrary,' he says, 'forgive and comfort her; and if you have forgiven anything to anyone, I forgive it too'. And lest we should think a man's gift to be despised, he added: 'For what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven for your sakes in the presence of Christ.' The gifts of Christ are diverse. Whence also Joseph, in his type, had a coat of many colors.

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

5. I ask, what is this contention that closes its eyes and does not look at the clearest light? We said that there are diverse gifts in the Church: one gift of virginity, and another of marriage. And a little later: "I grant that marriage too is a gift of God. But between gift and gift there is a great diversity." And do we, who proclaim with the plainest voice that it is a gift of God, get accused of condemning it? Further, if Joseph is taken as a type of the Lord, his coat, varied and distinguished, represents virgins, widows, the continent, and the married.

And can he who belongs to Christ's coat be thought a stranger, when we have said that the queen herself, that is, the Church of the Savior, is surrounded in gilded clothing with the same variety? "But also in what follows, discussing marriage, we followed the same sense. This passage does not pertain to the present controversy. For it teaches, according to the Lord's judgment, that a wife is not to be divorced except for the cause of fornication, and that a divorced woman, while her husband lives, should not marry another; or else she ought certainly to be reconciled to her husband. And also in another place: 'A woman is bound as long as her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she is freed from the law of her husband: let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord', that is, a Christian." He who allows second and third marriages "in the Lord" forbids the first marriage with a heathen.

6. Let my detractors, I pray, open their ears, and see that I allowed second and third marriages "in the Lord." I, who did not condemn second and third marriages, could I have condemned the first marriage? Also in that passage where we interpret the Apostle's chapter: "Was any man called being circumcised? Let him not bring on the foreskin. Was any man called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised"—though certain very wise interpreters of the Scriptures maintain that this was said concerning circumcision and bondage to the Law—do we not most plainly maintain the covenants of marriage? For we said: "If someone was called in uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised. You had a wife," he says, "when you believed: do not think the faith of Christ a cause of separation; for God has called us in peace. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing: but the keeping of the commandments of God.

For without works, celibacy and marriage alike profit nothing: since even faith, which is properly of Christians, if it has no works, is said to be dead, and by this reasoning even the virgins of Vesta and the univirae of Juno could be numbered among the ranks of the saints. And a little later: 'Were you called being a slave? Care not for it: but if you may be made free, use it rather'. Even if you have a wife," he says, "and are bound to her, and you pay the debt, and do not have power over your own body, and (to speak more plainly) you are your wife's slave, do not for this reason be sad, nor sigh over your lost virginity. But even if you can find some grounds for separation, so that you might enjoy the freedom of chastity, do not seek your own salvation at the cost of another's destruction." Keep your wife for a while, and do not run ahead of her lingering; wait until she follows.

If you bear it patiently, a wife will be changed into a sister.

7. Also in the place where we discussed why Paul had said: "Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful," we so preferred virginity as to preserve the order of marriage. "If the Lord had commanded virginity, he would seem to condemn marriage, and to take away the seed-bed of mankind, from which virginity itself is born. If he had cut off the root, how would he seek fruits?

Unless he had first laid the foundations, by what reasoning would he build the edifice, and place upon it, to cover everything, the roof above?" If we called marriage the root, virginity the fruit; if marriage the foundation, and perpetual chastity the building or the roof: who will be so envious or so blind a detractor of mine as to see in the same house the building or the roof, and yet be ignorant of the foundation which supports the building and the roof? Further, in another place, presenting the Apostle's testimony, where he says: "Are you bound to a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife", we immediately added this: "Each of us has his own limits; give me mine, and you keep yours. If you are bound to your 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, if they are once bound, so you should not bind what is loosed." But also in another testimony, what we thought about virginity and marriage is most plainly declared: "The Apostle does not lay a snare upon us, nor compel us to be what we do not wish, but persuades to what is honorable and becoming, and makes us intently serve the Lord, and be always solicitous, and await the ready will of the Lord, so that when he commands something, like a strenuous and armed soldier, he may immediately fulfill what is commanded, 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." At the end also of the comparison of marriage and virgins, we concluded our discussion with this statement. Where there is a good thing and a better thing, the reward of the good and of the better is not one; and where there is not one reward, there are certainly diverse gifts.

"So much, then, is the difference between marriage and virginity, as between not sinning and doing good: nay, to put it more mildly, as much as between good and better."

8. Further, in what follows, when we say: "The discussion of marriage and virginity being finished, so that between the two, with a cautious moderation of precepts, it might turn neither to the left nor to the right, but proceed by the royal road, and fulfill that saying: 'Be not overmuch righteous'"—again comparing single marriage with second marriage, and just as he had subordinated marriage to virginity, so he subordinates second marriage to (first) marriage: have we not clearly shown what is the left hand in the Holy Scriptures, and what the right; and what "be not overmuch righteous" means? Namely, that it would be the left, if we were to follow the lust of Jews and Gentiles, and always burn for intercourse; the right, if we were to follow the error of the Manichaeans, and, under a pretense of chastity, be entangled in the nets of unchastity.

But the royal road is to desire virginity in such a way that marriage is not condemned. Moreover, who will be so unjust a judge of my little works as to say that I condemn first marriages, when he has read that I have spoken thus even of second marriages? "The Apostle allows second marriages; but to those who are willing, to those who cannot contain themselves: lest, having grown wanton against Christ, they wish to marry, having damnation because they have made void their first faith; and this he allows, because many have gone back after Satan. But they will be more blessed, if they so remain. And straightway he adds Apostolic authority: 'according to my judgment.' Further, lest the authority of the Apostle should seem lighter, as of a mere man, he added: 'But I think that I also have the Spirit of God.' Where he calls to continence, there he uses the counsel not 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: so relaxing to each, that each may bear what he can." Having therefore set forth the testimonies in which the Apostle allows second marriages, we immediately added this: Just as he allows marriage to virgins because of the danger of fornication, and makes excusable what is not in itself sought after, so, on account of the same danger of fornication, he allows second marriages to widows. "For it is better, though the second or third, to know one husband, than very many: that is, it is more tolerable for one man to have a harlot than for many." Let calumny cease. Here we discussed second marriage and third and fourth (if you please), not the first.

But lest anyone should refer to the first husband what we said—that it is more tolerable for one man to have a harlot than for many—since our whole question was about second and third marriage; finally, we signed off the discussion of second and third marriage with this closing: "All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient". "I do not condemn those twice married; nay, not even those thrice married, and, if it can be said, those married eight times. I will add something more: I even receive a fornicator repenting. Whatever is equally permitted must be weighed in an equal balance."

9. Let my calumniator blush, who says I condemn first marriages, when he reads: "I do not condemn those twice married, and thrice married, and, if it can be said, those married eight times." It is one thing not to condemn, another to praise; one thing to grant pardon, another to praise virtue.

But if I seem harsh in this, because I said, "whatever is equally permitted must be weighed in an equal balance," I think he will not judge me cruel and rigid, who has read that some places are prepared for virginity and marriage, others for those thrice or eight times married, and for penitents. Christ a virgin in the flesh, monogamous in spirit, because he has one Church—this our discourse in other places has attested; and we are believed to condemn marriage! Am I said to condemn marriage, whose words are these? And there is no doubt to anyone that "the priests descended from Aaron, Eleazar and Phinehas, who, though they themselves had wives, would rightly be objected to us, if, led by the error of the Encratites, we contended that marriages should be rejected." We reprove Tatian, chief of the Encratites, who casts away marriages—and do we ourselves condemn marriage?

And again, where I compare virgins and widows, what I thought about marriage, and how I made three grades of virginity, and widowhood or continence, and marriage, the very things I have written declare. "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 before God than married women serving the conjugal office, so let them too bear with equal mind that virginity is preferred to themselves."

10. Also, presenting the Apostle's testimony to the Galatians: "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified", we added a meaning of this kind: "The works of the law are marriages also.

Whence also they are cursed who have no children: which, even if they are allowed in the Gospel, yet it is one thing to grant indulgence to weakness, another to promise rewards to virtues." Behold, we plainly said that marriages are allowed in the Gospel: but nevertheless that those same persons, remaining in their office, cannot receive the rewards of chastity. But if husbands take this ill, let them not be angry with me, but with the Holy Scriptures; nay rather with bishops, and priests, and deacons, and the whole priestly and levitical choir, who know that they cannot offer sacrifices if they serve the conjugal work. But also in the place where we set forth testimony from the Apocalypse, is it not manifest what we thought about virgins and widows and spouses? "These are they who sing the new song, which no one can sing except he who is a virgin. These are the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb, and without blemish.

If virgins are the firstfruits of God, then widows, and those continent within marriage, will be after the firstfruits, that is, in the second and third rank. We place widows and married persons in the second and third rank: and are we said, with heretical fury, to condemn marriage?"

11. There are many things which, throughout the whole book, we have said with cautious moderation concerning virginity, widows, and marriage. But for the sake of brevity I will set forth one more testimony, which I do not think anyone will contradict, unless he wishes to prove himself either an enemy or a madman. For when I had set forth that the Lord went to the marriage in Cana of Galilee, after certain remarks I added this too: "For he who once went to a marriage, once taught that marriage should exist, and then it could be prejudicial to virginity, if we did not place marriage in the third rank after virginity and the chastity of widowhood.

But now, since it is characteristic of heretics to condemn marriages and to spurn God's ordinance, whatever he shall say in praise of marriage, we hear gladly. For the Church does not condemn marriages, but subordinates them; she does not cast them off, but administers them, knowing (as we said above) that in a great house there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay: and some for honor, others for dishonor. And whoever shall have cleansed himself will be a vessel of honor, useful, prepared for every good work." Whatever, I say, he shall say in praise of marriage, we hear gladly. We hear gladly that marriage is praised, and do we condemn marriage? The Church does not condemn marriages, but subordinates them. Whether you will or not, the husband is subordinated to virginity and to widowhood. The Church subordinates marriage—but marriage remaining in its own proper work—she does not condemn it, nor cast it off, but administers it.

It is in your power, if you wish, to climb according to the rank of chastity. Why are you indignant, if, standing in the third rank, you do not wish to hasten to the higher ones?

12. Since therefore I have so often and so frequently admonished the reader, and have proceeded like a wary traveler almost through every single mile of the treatise, saying that I accept marriage in such a way that I nevertheless prefer to it the continent, widows, and virgins; a prudent and kindly Reader ought, even in those matters that seem harsh, to have judged them in the light of the rest, and not, within one and the same book, to accuse me of having put forth contrary opinions. For who is so dull, and so unskilled in writing, as to praise and condemn the same thing? To destroy what he has built, and to build up what he has destroyed? And, having conquered his adversary, to be struck at last by his own sword?

If rustic men, ignorant of the art of rhetoric or of dialectic, were to detract from me, I would grant pardon to their inexperience, nor would I find fault with the accusation, where I discerned not intent in the fault, but ignorance. But now, since eloquent men, trained in liberal studies, wish rather to injure than to understand, let them briefly receive this answer from me: that they ought to correct faults, not merely find fault with them. The field lies open, the battle line stands opposite, the adversary's dogma is manifest, and “Behold him over against thee, who calls”: let them answer the adversary. Let them hold one manner in disputing, another in teaching; and let them show me, in their own books, what I have either omitted or added. I do not listen to fault-finders; I follow teachers. It is an easy sort of learning, to dictate blows to a fighter from the wall, and, while you yourself are anointed with perfumes, to accuse the bloodied soldier of cowardice.

Nor, in saying this, am I at once guilty of boasting, as though I alone had fought while the rest slept; but I say this, that they can fight more cautiously who have seen me wounded. I would not have you enter such a contest as merely shields you, while your right hand is idle and your left carries the shield about. Either you must strike, or you must fall. I cannot deem you victor, unless I see the adversary slain.

13. We have read together, most learned men, in the schools; and we have together learned those Aristotelian teachings, or those flowing from the fountains of Gorgias, namely that there are several kinds of speaking: and among the rest, that it is one thing to write γυμναστικῶς (gymnastically), another δογματικῶς (dogmatically). In the former, the disputation is loose; and one answering an adversary now proposes this, now that. He argues as he pleases, says one thing, does another, shows, as the saying goes, bread, but holds a stone.

But in the latter, an open brow, and, so to speak, ingenuous candor is necessary. It is one thing to inquire, another to define. In the one, one must fight; in the other, one must teach. Would you, a zealous teacher, instruct me while I stand in battle, imperiling my life? Do not deal a wound obliquely, from where it is not expected. Strike with a straight sword. It is shameful for you to strike the enemy by tricks, not by strength—as though it were not also the highest art of fighters, now to threaten, now to strike. Read, I beg you, Demosthenes, read Cicero: and lest perhaps the Rhetoricians displease you (whose art it is to speak what is plausible rather than what is true), read Plato, Theophrastus, Xenophon, Aristotle, and the rest who, flowing from the fountain of Socrates, ran off in different streamlets: what in them is open, what is simple? What words are not of feeling? What feelings are not of victory? Origen, Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris write many thousands of verses against Celsus and Porphyry.

Consider with what arguments, and with what slippery problems woven by the spirit of the devil, they overturn their opponents: and because at times they are compelled to speak not what they feel but what necessity demands, they speak against what the Gentiles say. I say nothing of the Latin writers, Tertullian, Cyprian, Minucius, Victorinus, Lactantius, Hilary, lest I seem not so much to have defended myself as to have accused others. Let me bring forward the Apostle Paul, whom, as often as I read him, I seem to myself to hear not words, but thunders.

Read his Epistles, and especially those to the Romans, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, in which he is wholly engaged in combat; and you will see, in the testimonies which he takes from the Old Testament, how skillful, how prudent, how much a dissembler of what he is doing he is. His words indeed seem simple, and as it were those of an innocent and rustic man, one who knows neither how to lay snares nor to avoid them: but wherever you look, they are thunderbolts. He clings to his cause, he seizes upon whatever he touches: he turns his back, that he may overcome; he feigns flight, that he may slay. Let us then find fault with him, and say to him: The testimonies which you used against the Jews, or against other heresies, sound one way in their own places, another way in your Epistles. We see examples serving you as captives for victory, which in their own volumes do not fight at all.

Does he not speak to us along with the Savior: do we speak one way abroad, another at home? The crowd hears parables, the disciples hear the truth. The Lord proposes questions to the Pharisees, and does not explain them. It is one thing to teach a disciple, another to conquer an adversary. “My secret,” he says, “is mine, my secret is mine and my people’s”.

14. You are indignant with me, because I did not teach Jovinian, but conquered him. Nay rather, those are indignant with me who grieve that he has been anathematized: and while they praise what they are, they accuse what they pretend to be. As though indeed he were to have been asked to yield to me, and not led, unwilling and resisting, into the bonds of truth. And I would admit these things, if out of zeal for winning I had said anything contrary to the rule of the Scriptures; and, as strong men are wont to do in controversies, had redeemed fault with reward.

But now, since I have been rather an interpreter of the Apostle than a maker of doctrine, and have used the office of a commentator, whatever seems harsh should be imputed rather to him whom I expounded, than to me who expounded him. Unless perhaps he said otherwise, and we have twisted the simplicity of his words by a malicious interpretation. Let him who argues this prove it from the Scriptures themselves. “We said: If it is good for a man not to touch a woman, then it is evil to touch one: for nothing is contrary to good, except evil. But if it is evil, and yet is pardoned, it is therefore permitted, lest something worse than evil should occur:” and so forth up to the proposition of the next chapter. We added this because the Apostle had said: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman: but because of fornication, let each man have his own wife, and each woman have her own husband”.

In what do my words differ from the sense of the Apostle? Unless perhaps in this, that he asserts, I doubt; he defines, I inquire; he says openly: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman,” I ask timidly, whether it is good not to touch a woman. To question belongs to one who doubts, not to one who affirms. He says: “It is good not to touch”; I add what may be contrary to the good. And immediately in what follows—one should note the Apostle's prudence. He did not say: “It is good for a man not to have a wife,” but “It is good not to touch a woman:” as though there were danger even in the touching of her; as though he who touched her would not escape.

You see, then, that we are not expounding concerning spouses, but disputing simply concerning intercourse, that in comparison with chastity and virginity, and the likeness to the Angels, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity,” says Ecclesiastes. If all creatures are good, as made by a good Creator, how is the whole thing vanity? If the earth is vanity, are not also the heavens, and the Angels, and Thrones, Dominations, Powers, and the other Virtues? But things which are good in themselves, as made by a good Creator, are called vanity in comparison with better things. For example: a candle, compared with a lamp, is as nothing; a lamp, compared with a star, does not shine; compare a star with the moon, it is dark; join the moon to the sun, it does not glow; compare the sun with Christ, and it is darkness. “I am,” he says, “who am”.

If then you compare every creature with God, it does not subsist. "Give not," says Esther, "thine inheritance to them that are not", namely to idols and demons. And certainly there were idols and demons, that they might not be handed over to them, for whom she prayed. In Job also we read that it was said by Baldad concerning the wicked man: "Let his confidence be plucked from his tabernacle, and let him tread upon him like the king of destruction. Let the companions of him that is not dwell in his tabernacle:" doubtless of the devil, who, though he has companions, would not have them unless he existed; yet because he has perished to God, he is said not to be. Therefore, according to this sense of comparison, "we have said it is evil for a man to touch a woman (though no mention was made of a wife), because it is good not to touch." And we added: "calling virginity wheat, marriage barley, fornication cow-dung." Now wheat and barley are indeed God's creation.

But in the Gospel the greater crowd is fed with barley loaves, the smaller with wheat loaves: "Men and beasts thou wilt save, O Lord". We have said the same thing in other words, when we called virginity gold, marriage silver: and the hundred and forty-four thousand sealed virgins, who were not defiled with women: in which we wished to show that all who have not remained virgins are, in comparison with that most pure and angelic chastity, and that of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, polluted. But if it seems harsh and worthy of reproof to anyone that we have made so great a distance between virginity and marriage as there is between wheat and barley, let him read the book of St. Ambrose On Widows, and he will find that he too, among the other things he discussed concerning virginity and marriage, said this. "Nor did the Apostle so prefer marriage as to extinguish zeal for virginity Ambrose: for integrity: but beginning from the persuasion to continence, he descends to remedies for incontinence.

And when he had shown the prize of the heavenly calling to the strong, yet he suffered no one to fail on the way: thus applauding the foremost, that he might not despise those who follow. For he too had learned that the Lord Jesus showed to some barley bread, lest they should faint on the way; to others his own body, that they might strive toward the kingdom." And in what follows: "Therefore the marriage bond is not to be avoided as if it were a fault, but to be declined as a burden of necessity. For the Law binds the wife, that she bring forth children in labor and sorrow: her turning shall be to her husband, that he may rule over her.

Therefore it is the married woman, not the widow, who is condemned to labors and sorrows in the bearing of children: and it is she alone who is joined in wedlock, not the virgin, who is subjected to the dominion of a husband." And in another place he says: "Ye are bought with a price; be not made the servants of men". "You see how evident is the definition of conjugal servitude." And a little after: "If, then, a good marriage is servitude, what is a bad one, when they cannot sanctify one another, but only ruin each other?" All that we have poured forth in a lengthy discourse concerning virginity and marriage, he compressed into a brief summary, comprehending much in few words. Virginity is proclaimed by him as the persuasion to continence: marriage as the remedy of incontinence. And significantly descending from the greater to the lesser, he shows to virgins the prize of the heavenly calling, and consoles married persons that they may not faint on the way. He praises some, he does not despise others.

He compares marriage to barley, virginity to the body of Christ. And I think there is a much smaller distance between wheat and barley than between barley and the body of Christ. Finally he says that marriage is to be declined as a burden of necessity, and that it is most evidently a definition of servitude. And many other things which he pursued at great length in his three little books on virgins.

15. From all of which it is clear that I have said nothing new concerning virgins and marriages; but that in everything I have followed the opinion of our elders, namely both his and that of the rest who have discussed ecclesiastical doctrines: whose negligence rather than the obscure diligence of others I desire to emulate. Let husbands swell with rage against me because I have said: "I ask you, what sort of good is that which forbids prayer, which does not permit the receiving of the body of Christ?

When I fulfill the office of a husband, I do not fulfill that of a continent man." The same Apostle commands in another place that we should always pray. "If we must always pray, then we must never serve marriage. Because as often as I render the debt to my wife, I cannot pray." Why I said this is clear, because I was interpreting that saying of the Apostle: "Defraud ye not one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to prayer". Paul the Apostle says that when we come together with our wives, we cannot pray. If through intercourse that which is less, namely prayer, is hindered, how much more is that which is greater, namely the receiving of the body of Christ, forbidden? Peter exhorts to continence, lest our prayers be hindered. What, I ask, is my sin here? What have I deserved? What have I done wrong? If the waters flow turbid and clouded, the fault is not the channel's, but the spring's.

Am I therefore accused, because I dared to add of my own: "What sort of good is that which does not permit the receiving of the body of Christ?" To this I will briefly reply. Which is greater, to pray, or to receive the body of Christ? Certainly to receive the body of Christ. If through intercourse that which is less is hindered, much more that which is greater. We said in the same volume that David and his companions could not, according to the Law, eat the loaves of proposition unless they answered that they had been clean from women for three days—not indeed from harlots, which was condemned by the Law, but from wives, to whom they were lawfully joined. Also that the people, when about to receive the Law on Mount Sinai, were commanded to abstain from their wives for three days. I know that this is the custom at Rome, that the faithful always receive the body of Christ, which I neither reprove nor approve: for "every man abounds in his own sense".

But I appeal to the conscience of those who commune on the same day after intercourse, and, in the words of Persius, "wash away the night in the river"; why do they not dare to go to the Martyrs? Why do they not enter the churches? Is Christ one in public, another at home? What is not lawful in the church is not lawful at home either. Nothing is closed to God, and even darkness shines before God. Let each one prove himself, and so approach the body of Christ; not that one day, or two days, of delayed communion make a Christian holier, so that what I did not merit today, I might merit tomorrow or the day after; but that, while I grieve that I have not communicated in the body of Christ, I should abstain for a little while from my wife's embrace: that I might prefer the love of Christ to the love of my spouse. It is hard, and not to be borne. Who among the worldly can endure this?

Let him who can endure it, endure it; let him who cannot, see to it himself. It is our concern to say not what each one can or wishes, but what the Scriptures command.

16. This also is picked at in my little commentaries on the same Apostle, in which I said: "But lest anyone think, from what follows—'that ye may give yourselves to prayer, and return again together'—that the Apostle wishes this, and does not concede it on account of a greater ruin, he at once adds, 'lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency.' A fine indulgence indeed, and 'return again together.' What he blushes to call by its own name; what he prefers to the temptation of Satan; what has incontinence as its cause—do we labor to discuss it as obscure, when he who wrote it has himself explained it?

'But this I say,' he says, 'by indulgence, not by commandment.' And do we still murmur at not calling marriage an indulgence, but a precept—as if second and third marriages, and the rest, were not conceded in the same way?" What have I said here that the Apostle did not say? Surely that which he blushes to call by its own name? I think that when he says "together," and passes over the thing itself in silence, he is not openly naming intercourse, but modestly indicating it. Or is it because it follows, "what he prefers to the temptation of Satan, what has incontinence as its cause"? Is not this, in a different order of words, the very same as "lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency"? Or is it because I said, "And do we still murmur at not calling marriage an indulgence, but a precept"?

But if this is harsh, let it be charged to the Apostle, who says: "But this I say by indulgence, not by commandment"; not to me, who, apart from a reversed order, changed neither the sense nor the words.

17. Let us pass to the rest, for the discourse hastens, by reason of epistolary brevity: "I say," says the Apostle, "to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they so remain, even as I. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn".

This passage we have interpreted thus: "After he had conceded to the married the use of marriage, and had shown what he himself wished, and what he conceded, he passes to the unmarried and to widows, and proposes himself as an example, and calls them happy if they so remain: but if they do not contain themselves, let them marry—saying the very thing he said above: 'because of fornication,' and, 'lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency.' And he gives the reason why he said, 'If they do not contain themselves, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.' Therefore it is better to marry, because it is worse to burn. Remove the ardor of lust, and he will not say that it is better to marry. 'Better' always looks to 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." And a little further on, when I had made an apostrophe to the Apostle, I added: "If marriage is good in itself, do not compare it to a fire; but say simply, it is good to marry. I suspect the goodness of that thing, whose goodness is forced to be inferior only by the magnitude of another evil. But I do not want a lesser evil, but a simple good in itself. The Apostle wishes the unmarried and widows to remain without intercourse, and calls them to his own example, and pronounces them happier if they so remain.

But if they cannot contain themselves, and wish to quench the ardor of lust not so much by continence as by fornication, it is better to marry than to burn." To which we added: therefore it is better to marry, because it is worse to burn: not putting forth our own opinion, but interpreting that saying of the Apostle, "it is better to marry than to burn," that is, it is better to take a husband than to fornicate. If you should teach that to burn or to fornicate is good, then it would be preferred as a good to a good. But if it is better to marry, which is preferred to an evil, this is not of genuine and pure integrity, nor of that blessedness which is compared to the angels. If I should say, it is better to be a virgin than to be married, I have preferred a better to a good.

But if I make a second degree, "it is better to marry than to fornicate," there I have not preferred a better to a good, but a good to an evil. There is a great difference between that "better" which is set before marriage, and that which is set before fornication. I beg you, what have I sinned in this discussion? My purpose was not to bend the Scriptures to my own will, but to say what I understood the Scriptures to mean. It is the office of a commentator not to set forth what he himself wishes, but what he whom he interprets means. Otherwise, if he says the contrary, he will be not so much an interpreter as an adversary of him whom he strives to explain. Certainly, wherever I am not interpreting the Scriptures, but speaking freely from my own opinion, let whoever wishes accuse me of having said something harsh against marriage.

But if he finds none, whatever seems austere or harsh, let him impute it to the authority of the Writer, not to the office of the interpreter.

18. But who could bear this, which is found fault with in me: that, when explaining the passage of the Apostle in which he wrote concerning spouses, "such shall have tribulation of the flesh", I said: "We in our ignorance of these matters supposed that marriage at least had the joy of the flesh. But if for those marrying there is tribulation 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 both in the spirit, and in the soul, and in the flesh itself?" What condemnation of marriage is this, if we called the crying of infants, the deaths of children, miscarriages, losses of the household, and other such things, the tribulation of marriage?

While Damasus of holy memory was still alive, I wrote a book against Helvidius "On the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary," in which it was necessary for me, in order to proclaim the blessedness of virginity, to say much about the troubles of marriage. Did that excellent man, learned in the Scriptures, a virgin and a teacher of the virgin Church, find fault with anything in that discourse? In the book to Eustochium also I said much harsher things about marriage, and no one was offended by this. For a lover of chastity would eagerly listen with attentive ear to the praise of purity. Read Tertullian, read Cyprian, read Ambrose; and along with them either accuse me or acquit me.

Plautine households have been discovered, and mere pretenders to learning bent only on detraction, who wish to show themselves learned in this, if they tear apart the sayings of everyone, and in one and the same case find fault with both parties—that is, both me and my adversary—and, since of the two one must necessarily win, contend that both are defeated. "Further, when discussing those twice-married and thrice-married, we said: although it is better to have known one husband, or a second, or a third, than very many, that is, it is more tolerable for a woman to be a prostitute to one man than to many—did we not immediately add why I said this? For that Samaritan woman in the Gospel too, saying she had had six husbands, is rebuked by the Lord because he is not her husband".

I now proclaim again with a free voice, that second marriage is not condemned in the Church, nor even third marriage, and that it is as lawful to marry a fifth, sixth, or further husband as a second: but as these marriages are not condemned, so neither are they praised. They are consolations of misery, not praises of continence. "Hence also in another place I said: Once one husband has been exceeded, it makes no difference whether it is a second or a third; because one ceases to be monogamous. All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. I do not condemn those twice-married, nor even thrice-married, and if it can be said, those married eight times: let each have her eighth husband, and cease to be a prostitute.

19. I come also to that passage in which I am found fault with, because I said that, at least according to the Hebrew Truth, on the second day it is not added, as it is on the first and the third and the rest: "God saw that it was good"; and I immediately added: "It is left to our understanding that the double number is not good, since it divides from unity, and prefigures the covenants of marriage. Whence also in Noah's ark all the animals which enter two by two are unclean. The odd number is clean." In this I do not know what is being found fault with meanwhile concerning the second day: whether because it is written, and we said it is not written; or because, even if it is written, we understood it otherwise than the simplicity of Scripture allows.

That it is not written on the second day, "God saw that it was good": let them accept not my testimony, but that of all the Hebrews, and of the other translators, namely Aquila, and Symmachus, and Theodotion. But if it is not written, when it is written on the other days, either let them give another more probable reason why it is not written; or if they do not find one, let them, though unwilling, suspect that what has been said by me is true. Furthermore, if in Noah's ark all the animals which enter two by two are unclean, and the odd number is clean, and no one doubts that this is written; let them explain why it is written. But if they do not explain it, they will suspect, whether they will or not, that what has been expounded by me is true.

Either produce a better feast, and let me be your guest: or be content with our humble little supper, whatever it is. Must I now enumerate those of the Church's writers who have discussed the odd number—Clement, Hippolytus, Origen, Dionysius, Eusebius, Didymus, and among our own, Tertullian, Cyprian, Victorinus, Lactantius, Hilary: of whom Cyprian, discussing the number seven, that is, the odd number, in his letter to Fortunatus, testifies by that very book what and how much he said. Or shall I perhaps bring forward Pythagoras, and Archytas of Tarentum, and Publius Scipio in the sixth book of the Republic, disputing about the odd number? And if my detractors are unwilling to hear these, I will make the schools of the Grammarians cry out to them: "God delights in an odd number".

20. A great sin, the churches are overturned, the world cannot bear to hear, if I said that virginity is purer than marriage: if I subordinated the even number to the odd, and showed that the types of the Old Testament have advanced to the truth of the Gospel. As for the other things found fault with in my book, I think them either lighter matters, or pertaining to the same meaning: for which reason I did not wish to answer them, lest I seem to exceed the size of a booklet, and seem to distrust your own talent, whom I had as patron of my cause before I even asked you. Therefore with my last word I declare this: that I have neither condemned marriage, nor do I condemn it; I have answered an adversary, I have not feared the plots of my own people. But virginity I extol to the heavens, not because I possess it, but because I marvel the more at what I do not possess.

It is an honest and modest confession, to proclaim in others that which one lacks oneself. Do I not marvel at the flight of birds because I am bound to the earth by a heavy body, nor do I praise the dove, because "it skims its liquid path, nor stirs its swift wings"? Let no one deceive himself: let no one be cast down by flattering self-deception. The first virginity is from birth, the second virginity is from a second birth. This is not my saying, it is an ancient saying: "No one can serve two masters", the flesh and the spirit. "The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; these are contrary one to another, so that you do not do the things that you would". When something seems harsh to you in my little work, look not to my words, but to the Scripture from which my words are drawn.

21. Christ a virgin, the Mother of our Virgin ever a Virgin, mother, and virgin.

For Jesus entered while the doors were shut, and in his tomb, which was new, and had been hewn out of the hardest rock, no one had been placed before, nor after. A garden enclosed, a fountain sealed: from which fountain flows that river according to Joel, which waters the torrent, or of ropes, or of thorns: of the ropes of sins, by which they were formerly bound; of the thorns, which choked the seed of the householder. This is the eastern gate, as Ezekiel says, always shut, and bright, and covering within itself, or bringing forth from itself, the Holy of Holies; through which the sun of righteousness, and our High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, enters and goes forth. Let them answer me, how Jesus entered while the doors were shut, when he showed his hands to be touched, and his side to be examined, and his bones and flesh, lest the truth of his body be thought a phantasm; and I will answer, how holy Mary is both mother and virgin.

A virgin after childbirth, a mother before marriage. Therefore, as we had begun to say, Christ a virgin, Mary a virgin, dedicated the beginnings of virginity for both sexes. The Apostles, either virgins, or continent after marriage. Bishops, Priests, Deacons, are chosen either as virgins, or as widowers, or certainly as chaste forever after ordination. Why do we deceive and vex ourselves, if, being ever in heat for intercourse, the rewards of purity are denied to us? We wish to eat sumptuously, to cling to the embraces of wives, and yet to reign with Christ in the company of virgins and widows. Shall then fasting and gluttony, filth and cleanliness, sackcloth and silk, have the same reward? Lazarus received evil things in his life, and that rich man clothed in purple, fat and sleek, enjoyed the good things of the flesh while he lived: but after death they hold different places: Miseries are exchanged for delights, and delights for miseries. It is in our own choice, either to follow Lazarus, or the rich man.

I know very well that, regarding my little works against Jovinian, you acted both prudently and lovingly in withdrawing copies. But that diligence profited nothing, since several coming from the City recited to me the very same things, which they said they had received at Rome. In this province too the books had already been made public: and, as you yourself have read, "a word once sent forth knows not how to return". I am not of such good fortune as many teachers of this age, that I might be able to correct my trifles whenever I wished. As soon as I have written anything, either my admirers or my detractors, indeed with different zeal but equal eagerness, spread it abroad among the people: and they go to excess either in praise or in blame, following not the merit of the writing but their own temper.

And so the only thing I could do, I have addressed to you an ἀπολογετικόν (apology) of the work itself; and when you have read it, you yourself will satisfy the rest on our behalf: or if you too draw up your nose in disdain, you will be compelled to interpret differently that περικοπή (passage) of the Apostle, in which he discusses virginity and marriage.

3. Nor do I say this in order to provoke you to write: for your zeal in the sacred letters I set above my own: but that you may compel others who tear at me to do this. They know letters, they think themselves learned men: they are able not to reprove me, but to teach me. If they write anything, my interpretation will be the more disregarded by comparison with their work. Read, I beg you, and carefully consider the Apostle's words, and then you will see that, in order to avoid calumny, I was much more lenient toward husbands than he himself intended.

Origen, Dionysius, Pierius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Didymus, Apollinaris have interpreted this Epistle at very great length: of whom Pierius, when winnowing and expounding the Apostle's meaning, and having proposed to explain that saying, "But I would that all men were even as I myself", added, "In saying these things Paul openly proclaims celibacy." What sin, I ask, what harshness is this of mine? All that I have written, compared to this statement, is most mild. Go over the commentaries of all those I have mentioned above, and make use of the libraries of the Churches, and you will arrive more swiftly at your wished-for and undertaken goal.

4. I hear that the zeal of the whole City has been stirred concerning you. I hear that the will of the Pontiff and of the people agree in one mind. It is less to hold the priesthood than to deserve it.

If you read the sixteen books of the Prophets, which I have translated into Latin from the Hebrew tongue, and I learn that you are delighted with this work, you will urge us also not to keep the rest shut up in the bookcase. I have recently translated Job into our tongue: a copy of which you will be able to borrow from your cousin, holy Marcella. Read the same in Greek and Latin; and compare the old Edition with our Translation: and you will clearly see how great is the difference between truth and falsehood. I have sent certain of my commentaries on the twelve Prophets to the holy father Domnio, and also Samuel and Malachim, that is, the four books of Kings. If you wish to read these, you will prove how great a difficulty it is to understand the divine Scripture, and especially the Prophets: and how, through the fault of translators, things which flow among their own people in the purest course of speech, teem with faults among us.

Moreover, the eloquence which you disdain in Cicero for Christ's sake, do not seek in little children. Ecclesiastical interpretation, even if it has the charm of eloquence, ought to conceal and avoid it, so that it may speak not to the idle schools of philosophers and their few disciples, but to the whole human race.

Your letter sounds both of love and of complaint. Your love, whereby, admonishing me diligently, you dread even the things which are safe in us: the complaint of those who do not love, and who, seeking occasion for sins, chatter against their brother, and set a stumbling-block against their mother's son. For you write that they—nay, I know not what wandering monk from the crossroads, the alleys, the public squares, a tattler, a wrangler, cunning only for detraction, who while a beam is in his own eye strives to pluck out the mote from another's—declaims against me, and gnaws with dog's teeth, mangles, and tears to pieces the books which I wrote against Jovinian. This Dialectician, this pillar of your city and of the Plautine household, has indeed not read the Categories of Aristotle, nor the De Interpretatione, nor the Analytics, nor even Cicero's Topics, but through the circles of the unlearned and the drinking-parties of little women weaves unsyllogistic syllogisms, and, as it were, dissolves our sophisms by clever argumentation.

Foolish I, who thought I could not know these things without the Philosophers; who read that as the better part of style which would erase rather than write. In vain, then, did I translate the Commentaries of Alexander; to no purpose did my learned master introduce me to Logic through Porphyry's Introduction; and, to say nothing of human learning, without cause did I have Gregory Nazianzen and Didymus as my catechists in the Holy Scriptures: nothing has profited me of Hebrew learning, and my daily meditation from adolescence to this age in the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, the Apostolic writings.

2. There has been found a man, perfect without a teacher, "spirit-bearing," and self-taught, who surpasses Tully in eloquence, Aristotle in argument, Plato in prudence, Aristarchus in erudition, Chalcenterus in multitude of books, Didymus in knowledge of the Scriptures, and all the commentators of his time. Finally, he is said to demand a subject-matter, and, recalling something of Carneades, to dispute on both sides—that is, both for chastity and against it.

The world has been freed from danger, and hereditary or centumviral lawsuits have been rescued from the abyss, because this man, neglecting the forum, has betaken himself to the Church. Who, had he been unwilling, would have been found innocent? What guilty man would not his oratory have saved, once he began to divide his case upon his fingers, and to spread the nets of his syllogisms? For if he had stamped his foot, fixed his eyes, wrinkled his brow, tossed his hand, twisted his beard, he would straightway have poured darkness before the eyes of the judges. Nor is it strange that a man most eloquent in Latin should surpass me, long absent and out of practice in the Latin tongue, half a Greekling and a barbarian, since he crushed even Jovinian in person (good Jesus, what a man, and how great! Whose writings no one could understand, who sang only for himself and the Muses) beneath the weight of his eloquence.

3. I beg you, therefore, dearest father, to admonish him not to speak against his own profession; not, while promising chastity by his habit, to destroy it by his words; not, being a virgin or a continent man (for he himself may see what he boasts himself to be), to compare married women to virgins, and to have fenced in vain, for so long a time, against a most eloquent man. I hear besides that he gladly goes about the cells of virgins and widows, and, with knitted brow, philosophizes among them concerning the sacred letters. What does he teach these little women in secret, in the chamber? That virgins are the same as married women; that they should not neglect the flower of their age; that they should eat and drink, and go to the baths, seek fine things, not despise ointments? Or rather chastity, and fasting, and squalor of body? Surely he teaches those things which are full of virtue. Let him confess publicly what he says at home.

Or if he teaches at home the same things as in public, he ought to be separated from the company of girls. But I marvel that a young man, and a monk—as he seems to himself—eloquent (from whose mouth graces flow; who is of such elegance in speech that he is sprinkled with comic wit and charm), does not blush to haunt the houses of nobles, to cling to the greetings of matrons, to make our religion a battle, and to twist the faith of Christ with contentious words; and amid all this to detract from his brother. Surely if he thought me in error (for in many things we all offend, and "if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man,"), he ought either to have refuted me, or to have questioned me by letter, as the learned and noble Pammachius did, to whom I gave account as best I could, and discoursed in a longer letter (the preceding Letter XLVIII), explaining in what sense I said each thing.

He might at least have imitated your modesty, who gathered together in order the passages excerpted from the volume which seemed to some to give scandal, asking that I either amend or explain them, and did not think me so mad as to write, in one and the same book, both for marriage and against marriage.

4. Let him spare himself, spare me, spare the Christian name. Let him know that he is a monk not by talking and running about, but by keeping silence and sitting still. Let him read Jeremiah, saying: "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke from his youth. He shall sit alone, and keep silence, because he hath borne it upon him". Or if indeed he has taken up the censor's rod against all writers, and thinks himself learned on this account, because he alone understands Jovinian (for there is a proverb: a stammerer understands a stammerer's words better), we are all called "no writers" by Attilius as judge.

Jovinian himself too, an unlettered writer, will most justly proclaim this of him. That the bishops condemn me is no argument, but a conspiracy. I do not want this man or that to answer me, whose authority can overwhelm me, but cannot teach me. Let a man write against me whose tongue I too understand; whom when I have conquered, I shall at once have conquered all men. For I know well (believe one who has tried) "how great he rises to the shield, with what whirlwind he hurls the spear". He is strong, and in disputing knotty and tenacious, and one who fights with head bent sideways and arched. Often from night until evening he has shouted against us in the public squares; he has flanks and the strength of an athlete, and is finely corpulent. He seems to me secretly a follower of my own doctrine.

Besides, he never blushes, nor considers what he says, but how much; and he has come into such repute for eloquence, that his sayings are wont to be the dictations of curled schoolboys. How often has this fellow made me indignant in the assemblies, and driven me to wrath? How often has he spat upon me, and, having spat, withdrawn? But these things are common, and can be done by any of my followers: I appeal to books, to the memory to be handed down to posterity. Let us speak in writings, that the silent reader may judge of us; that, as I lead a flock of disciples, so from this man's name they may be called Gnathonics or Phormionics.

5. It is no great thing, my Domnion, to chatter in corners and in physicians' shops, and to pronounce sentence on the world: this man spoke well, that man ill; this one knows the Scriptures, that one raves; this one is talkative, that one is utterly speechless. Who has deserved, by what judgment of his, to judge of all?

To bawl at random against anyone in the crossroads, and to heap up abuses, not accusations, is the part of a buffoon, and of one always ready for quarrels. Let him move his hand, fix his pen, bestir himself; and let him show, by writings, whatever he can. Let him give us occasion to answer his eloquence. I can bite back, if I will; I can, if wounded, fix my own tooth in return. I too have learned letters; "and I too have often withdrawn my hand from the ferule". Of me too it can be said: He has hay on his horn; flee far. But I prefer rather to be the disciple of him who says: "I have given my back to the smiters, and my face I have not turned away from the shame of spitting". "Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again"; and after blows, the cross, scourges, blasphemies, at the last prayed for those who crucified him, saying: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do".

And I forgive my brother's error: I understand that he has been deceived by the art of the devil. Among little women he seemed to himself learned and eloquent. After my little works reached Rome, he shuddered at me as a rival, and sought to catch some glory for himself too from me, so that there might be no one on earth who did not displease his eloquence, except those whose power he does not spare, but yields to; nay, whom he does not honor, but fears. This most skilled man wished, like a veteran soldier, to strike both with one turn of the sword, and to show the people that whatever he himself wished, this the Scripture meant. Let him then deign to send us his discourse, and correct our garrulity not by reproof but by teaching.

Then he will understand that the force of the forum is one thing, that of the dining-room another; that it is not the same thing to dispute among the spindles and baskets of girls, and among learned men concerning the divine doctrines of the Law. Now he freely and shamelessly boasts before the crowd, and clamors, condemns marriage; and amid swelling wombs, the wailings of infants, and the beds of husbands, he is silent as to what the Apostle said, that he may call down envy upon me alone. But when he comes to books, and foot is joined to foot, and he either proposes something from the Scriptures, or hears one proposing it, then he will sweat, then he will falter. Far be Epicurus, far Aristippus; the swineherds will not be present, the sow will not grunt.

"We too, father, hurl weapons and no feeble steel with our right hand, and blood follows from our wound as well." Further, if he does not wish to write, and thinks that only abuse is to be dealt in, let him hear, though so many lands, deeds, and peoples lie between us, at least the echo of my cry: I do not condemn marriage, I do not condemn wedlock. And that he may hold my opinion more certainly, I wish all who perhaps, from fear of the night, cannot lie alone, to take wives.