 Book 1, chapters 1 through 5 of Against De Novianius by Saint Jerome. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Very few days have elapsed since the Holy Brethren of Rome sent to me the treatises of a certain Jovinian with the request that I would reply to the follies contained in them. It would crush with evangelical and apostolic vigor the epicurious of Christianity. I read them but could not in the least comprehend them. I began, therefore, to give them closer attention and to thoroughly sift not only words and sentences, but almost every single syllable, for I wished first to ascertain his meaning and then to approve or refute what he had said, but the style is so barbarous and the language so vile and such a heap of blunders that I could neither understand what he was talking about nor by what arguments he was trying to prove his points. At one moment he is all bombast, at another he grovels, from time to time he lifts himself up and then, like a wounded snake, finds his own effort too much for him. Not satisfied with the language of men, he attempts something loftier. The mountain's laborer, a poor mouse is born, that he's gone mad, even mad, Orestes swears. Moreover, he involves everything in such an inextricable confusion that the saying of Plautus might be applied to him. This is what none but a syllable will ever read. To understand him we must be prophets, we must read Apollo's raving prophetesses. We remember too what Virgil says of senseless noise. Heraclites also, surnamed the obscure, the philosophers find hard to understand, even with their utmost toil. What are they, compared with our riddle maker, whose books are much more difficult to comprehend than to refute? Although we must confess the task of refuting them is no easy one. For how can you overcome a man when you are quite in the dark as to his meeting? But not to be tedious to my reader, the introduction to his second book of which he has discharged himself, like a sod after a night's debauch, will show the character of his eloquence, and through what bright flowers of rhetoric he takes his stately course. I respond to your invitation, not that I may go through life with a high reputation, but may live free from idle rumor. I beseech the ground, the young shoots of our plantations. The plants and trees of tenderness snatch from the whirlpool of vice to grant me audience and the support of many listeners. We know that the church through hope, faith, charity is inaccessible and impregnable. In it no one is immature. All are apt to learn. None can force away into it by violence or deceive it by craft. What I ask is the meaning of these pretentious words, and of this grotesque description. Would you not think he was in a feverish dream, or that he was seized with madness and ought to be put into the straitjacket, which Hippocrates described? However often I read him, even till my heart sinks within me, I am still in uncertainty of his meaning. Everything starts from, everything depends on, something else, it is impossible to make out any connection, and accepting the proofs from Scripture which he has not dared to exchange for his own lovely flowers of rhetoric, his words suit all manner equally well because they suit no matter at all. This circumstance led me shrewdly to suspect that his object in proclaiming the excellence of marriage was only to disparage virginity, but when the less is put upon a level with the greater, the lower profits by comparison, but the higher suffers wrong. For ourselves we do not follow the views of Marcian and Manichies, and disparage marriage, nor to see by the area of Chation, the leader of the Ancretites, do we think all intercourse and pure. He condemns and rejects not only marriage, but also food which God created for the use of man. We know that in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware, and that upon the foundation, Christ, which Paul the Master builder laid, some build gold, silver, precious stones, others on the contrary, hay, wood, straw. We are not ignorant of the words, marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled. We have read God's first command, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, but while we honor marriage we prefer virginity which is the offspring of marriage. Will silver cease to be silver if gold is more precious than silver, or is despite done to tree and corn, if we prefer the fruits to root and foliage, or the grain to stock and ear? Virginity is to marriage what fruit is to the tree, or grain to the straw. Although the hundredfold, the sixtyfold, and the thirtyfold spring from one earth and from one sowing, yet there is a great difference in respective number. The thirtyfold has referenced to marriage. The very way the fingers are combined, see how they seem to embrace, tenderly kiss, and pledge their troth, either to other, is a picture of husband and wife. The sixtyfold applies to widows, because they are placed in a position of difficulty and distress, hence the upper finger signifies their depression, and the greater the difficulty in resisting the allurements of pleasure once experienced, the greater the reward. Moreover, give good heed, my reader, to denotes a hundred. The right hand is used instead of the left. A circle is made with the same fingers, which on the left hand represent widowhood, and thus the crown of virginity is expressed. In saying this, I have followed my own impatient spirit, rather than the course of the argument, for I had scarcely left harbor, and had barely hoisted sail, when a swelling tide of words suddenly swept me into the depths of the discussion. I must stay my course, and take in canvas for a little while, nor will I indulge my sword, anxious as it is to strike a blow for virginity. The farther back the catapult is drawn, the greater the force of the missile. To linger is not to lose, if by lingering victory is better assured. I will briefly set forth their adversaries' views, and I will drag them out from his books, like snakes from the holes where they hide, and will separate the venomous head from the writhing body. What is baneful shall be discovered, that when we have the power, it may be crushed. He says that virgins, widows, and married women, who have been once passed through the lair of Christ, if they are on par in other respects, are of equal merit. He endeavors to show that they who, with full assurance of faith, have been born again in baptism cannot be overthrown by the devil. The third point is that there is no difference between abstinence from food and its reception with thanksgiving. The fourth and last is that there is one reward in the kingdom of heaven for all who have kept their baptismal vow. This is the hissing of the old serpent. By counsel such as this the dragon drove man from paradise, for he promised that if they would prefer fullness to fasting, they should be immortal, as though it were an impossibility for them to fall. And while he promises that they shall be gods, he drives them from paradise, with the results that they who, while naked and unhampered, and as virgins unspotted, enjoy the fellowship of the Lord, were cast down into the veil of tears, and sewed skins together to close themselves with all. But not to detain the reader any longer, I will keep to the division given above. And taking his propositions one by one, will rely chiefly on the evidence of scripture to refute them, for fear he may chatter and complain that he was overcome by rhetorical skill rather than by force of truth. If I succeed in this, and with the aid of a cloud of witnesses from both testaments prove too strong for him, I will then accept his challenge, and induce illustrations from secular literature. I will show that even among philosophers and distinguished statesmen, the virtuous are want to be preferred by all to the voluptuous, that is to say, men like Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristides, to Aristipus, Epicurus, and Elcibiades. I entreat virgins of both sexes, and all such as our continent, the married also, and the twice married, to assist my efforts with their prayers. Jovian is the common enemy, for he who maintains all to be of equal merits, does no less injury to virginity in comparing it with marriage than he does to marriage, when he allows it to be lawful, but to the same extent as second and third marriages. But to diamists and trigamists also he does wrong, for he places on level with them Hormungers and the most licentious persons as soon as they have repented, for perhaps those who have been married twice or thrice ought not to complain, for the same Hormunger if penitent is made equal in the Kingdom of Heaven, even to virgins. I will therefore explain more clearly, and in proper sequence the arguments he employs and the illustrations he adduces respecting marriage, and will treat them in the order in which he states them, and I beg the reader not to be disturbed if he is compelled to read Jovian's nauseating trash. He will all the more gladly drink Christ's antidote after the devil's poisonous concoction. Listen with patience ye virgins, listen I pray you, to the voice of the most voluptuous of preachers. Nay, rather close your ears, as ye would, to the sirens' fabled songs, and pass on. For a little while you endure the wrongs you suffer, think you are crucified with Christ and are listening to the blasphemies of the Pharisees. First of all he says, God declares that therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and so cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. First we should say that this is a quotation from the Old Testament. He asserts that it has been confirmed by the Lord and the Gospel. What God had joined together, let not man put us under, and he immediately adds, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. He next repeats the names of Seth, Enos, Canaan, Mohallel, Jared, Enoch, Massuselah, Lamec, Noah, and tells us that they all had wives, and in accordance with the will of God, the Gatsons, as though there could be any table of descent or any history of mankind without wives and children. There, says he, is Enoch, who walked with God and was carried up to heaven. There is Noah, the only person who, except his wife and his sons and their wives, was saved at the Deluge, although there must have been many persons not of marriageable age, and therefore presumably virgins. Again, after the Deluge, when the human race started as it were it knew, men and women were paired together, and a fresh blessing was pronounced on procreation. Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. Moreover, free permission was given to eat flesh. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you. As the green herb have I given you all. He then flies off to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from the first had three wives, the second one, the third four. Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpha. And he declares that Abraham, by his faith, merited the blessings which he had received in begetting his son. Sarah, typifying the church, when it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women, exchanged the curse of barrenness for the blessing of childbearing. We are informed that Rebecca went like a prophet to inquire of the Lord. It was told, two nations and two peoples are in thy womb, that Jacob served for his wife, and that when Rachel, thinking it was in the power of her husband to give her children, said, Give me children or else I die. He replied, I am in God's stead. Who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? So well aware was he that the fruit of marriage cometh from the Lord, and not from the husband. We next learn that Joseph, a holy man of spotless chastity, and all the blessed patriarchs had wives, and that God blessed them all alike through the lips of Moses. Judah also, and Thaymar, are brought upon the scene, and he censures Onan, slain by the Lord, because he, grudging to raise up seed to his brother, marred the marriage rights. He refers to Moses, an eleprcy of Miriam, who, because she chided her brother on account of his wife, was stricken by the avenging hand of God. He praises Samson. I may even say, extravagantly, panic arises, the exorias Nazarite. Deborah also, and Barak, are mentioned, because, although they had not the benefit of virginity, they are victorious over the iron chariots of Cicera and Javen. He brings forward Jail, the wife of Perber, the Kenite, and extols her for arming herself with the stake. He says that there was no difference between Jevtha and his virgin daughter, who was sacrificed to the Lord. Nay, of the two, he prefers the faith of the father to that of the daughter, who met death with grief and tears. He then comes to Samuel, another Nazarite of the Lord, who from intimacy was brought up in the tabernacle, and was glad in a linen ephod. Or, as the words are rendered in linen vestments, he too, we are told, begat sons without a stain upon his priestly purity. He places Boaz and his wife Ruth side by side in his repository, and traces the descent of Jesse and David from them. He then points out how David himself, for the price of two hundred foreskins and at the pearl of his life, was bedded with the king's daughter. What shall I say of Solomon, whom he includes in his list of husbands that represents as a type of the savior? Maintaining that of him it is written, Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son, and to him shall be given the gold of Sheba, and men shall pray for him continually. Then all at once he makes a jump to Elijah and Elisha, and tells us, a great secret, that the spirit of Elijah rested on Elisha. Why he mentioned this, he does not say. It can hardly be that he thinks Elijah and Elisha like the rest were married men. The next step is to Hezekiah, upon whose praises he dwells. And yet, I wonder why, forgets to mention that he said, henceforth I will beget children. He relates that Josiah, a righteous man, in whose time the book of Deuteronomy was found in the temple, was instructed by Huda, wife of Shalom. Daniel also, and the three youths, are clasped by him with the married. Suddenly he betakes himself to the gospel, and reduces Zechariah and Elizabeth, Peter, and his father-in-law, and the rest of the apostles. His inference is thus expressed. If they idly urge, in defense of themselves, the plea that the world, in its early stage, needed to be replenished, let them listen to the words of Paul. I desire therefore that the younger widows marry bare children, and marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled. And a wife is bound so long time as her husband liveth. But if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord. And Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled hath fallen into transgression. But she shall be saved through the childbearing, if they continue in faith and love, in sanctification with sobriety. Truly we shall hear no more of the famous apostolic utterance, and they who have wives as though they had not. It can hardly be that you will say the reason why he wished them to be married was that some widows had already turned back after Satan, as though virgins never fell and their fall was not more ruinous. All this makes it clear that, in forbidding to marry and to eat food which God created for use, you have consciousnesses seared as with the hot iron and are followers of the Manicheans. Then comes much more, which would be unprofitable to discuss. At last he dashes into rhetoric and apostrophizes virginity thus. I do you no wrong, virgin. You have chosen a life of chastity on account of the present distress. You determined on the course in order to be holy in body and spirits. Be not proud. You and your married sisters are members of the same church. End of book one, chapters one through five. Book one, chapters six through ten of Against Jovinianius by Saint Jerome. The sleeper box recording is in the public domain. I have perhaps explained his position at too great a length and become tedious to my reader, but I thought it best to draw up a full array against myself all his efforts and to muster all the forces of the enemy with their squadrons and generals. And after an early victory there should spring up as stories of other engagements. I will not therefore do battle with single foes, nor will I be satisfied with skirmishes in which I meet small detachments of my opponents. A battle must be fought with the whole army of the enemy, and the disorderly rabble fighting more like brigands than soldiers must be repulsed by the skill and method of regular warfare. In the front rank I will set the apostle Paul, since he is the bravest of generals, will arm him with his own weapons, that is to say, his own statements, for the Corinthians asked many questions about this matter, and the doctor of the Gentiles and the master of the church gave full replies. What he decreed we may regard as the law of Christ speaking in him. At the same time, when we begin to refute the several arguments, I trust the reader will give me his attention even before the apostle speaks. It will not in his eagerness to discuss the most weighty points, neglect the premises, and rush all at once to the conclusion. Among other things, the Corinthians asked in their letter whether after embracing the faith of Christ they ought to be unmarried, and for the sake of continence put away their wives and whether believing virgins were at liberty to marry. And again, supposing that one of the two Gentiles believed in Christ, whether the one that believed should leave the one that had believed not. And in case it were allowable to take wives, would the apostle direct that only Christian wives or Gentiles also should be taken? Let us then consider Paul's replies to these inquiries. Now, concerning the things whereof he wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, but because of fornications, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife her due, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power over her body, but the husband. And likewise also the husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one another, except it be by consent for a season, that ye may give yourselves unto prayer, and may be together again, that Satan tempts you not because of your inconstancy. But this I say by way of permission, not of commandments, yet I would that all men were, even as I myself, albeit each man hath his own gift from God, one after this manner and another after that. But I say to the unmarried unto the widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they have not constancy, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn. Let us turn back to the chief point of evidence. It is good, he says, for a man not to touch a woman. If it is good not to touch a woman, it is bad to touch one, for there is no opposite to goodness but badness. But if it be bad and the evil is pardoned, the reason for the concession is to prevent worse evil. But surely a thing which is only allowed because there may be something worse has only a slight degree of goodness. He would never have added that each man have his own wife, unless he had previously used the words, but because of fornications. Do away with fornication, and he will not say let each man have his own wife. Just as though one were to lay it down, it is good to feed on wheat and bread, and to eat the finest wheat flour, and yet to prevent a person pressed by hunger from devouring cow dung, it may allow him to eat barley. Does it follow that the wheat will not have its particular purity, because such a one prefers barley to excrement? That is naturally good, which does not admit of comparison with what is bad. It is not eclipsed because something else is preferred. At the same time, we must notice the apostle's prudence. He did not say it is good not to have a wife, but it is good not to touch a woman, as though there were danger even in the touch. As though he who touched her would not escape from her who hunted for the precious life, who causeth the young man's understanding to fly away. Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned, or can one walk upon hot coals and his feet not be scorched? As then he who touches fire is instantly burned, so by the mere touch the particular nature of man and woman is perceived, and the difference of sex is understood. Even fables relate how Mithras and Erechthonias were begotten of the soil in stone or earth by raging lust. Hence it was that our Joseph, because the Egyptian woman wished to touch him, fled from her hands, and as if he had been bitten by a mad dog and feared the spreading poison, threw away the cloak which she had touched. But because of fornications let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. He did not say because of fornication let each man marry a wife. Otherwise by this excuse he would have thrown the reins to lust, and whenever a man's wife died he would have to marry another to permit fornication. But have his own wife. Let him, he says, have and use his own wife, whom he had before he became a believer, in whom it would have been good not to touch, and when once he became a follower of Christ to know only as a sister, not as a wife, unless fornication should make it excusable to touch her. The wife hath not power over her own body but the husband, and likewise also the husband hath not power over his own body but the wife. The whole question here concerns those who are married men. Is it lawful for them to do what our Lord forbade in the Gospel, and to put away their wives? Once it is the Apostle says, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, but in as much as he who is once married has no power to abstain, except by mutual consent, it may not reject an unoffending partner. Let the husband render unto his wife her due. He bound himself voluntarily that he might be under compulsion to render it. To fraud ye not one the other, except it be by consent for a season that ye may give yourselves unto prayer. What I pray you is the quality of that good thing which hinders prayer, which does not allow the body of Christ to be received. So long as I do the husband's part, I fail in continency. The same Apostle in another place commands us to pray always. If we are to pray always, it follows that we must never be in bondage of wedlock, or as often as I render my wife her due, I cannot pray. The Apostle Paul had experience of the bonds of marriage. See how he fashions the church, and what lesson he teaches Christians. He husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, give honor unto the woman, as unto the weaker vessel, as being also a joint heirs of the grace of life, to the end that your prayers be not hindered. Observe that as Saint Paul before, because in both cases the spirits is the same, so Saint Peter now says that prayers are hindered by the performance of marriage duty. When he says likewise, he challenges the husbands to imitate their wives, because he has already given them commandments. Beholding your chaste conversation, coupled with fear, whose adorning let it not be the outward adorning of plating the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, and the incorrupt apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. You see what kind of wedlock he enjoins. Husbands and wives are to dwell together according to knowledge, so that they may know what God wishes and desires, and give honor to the weak vessel woman. If we abstain from intercourse, we give honor to our wives. If we do not abstain, it is clear that insult is the opposite of honor. He also tells the wives to let their husbands see their chaste behavior, and the hidden man of the heart in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit. Words truly worthy of an apostle, and of Christ's rock. He lays down the law for husbands and wives, condemns outward ornament, while he praises continents, which is the ornament of the inner man, as seen in the incorrupt apparel of a meek and quiet spirit. In effect he says this, since your outer man is corrupt, that you have ceased to possess the blessings of incorruption, characteristic of virgins, at least imitate the incorruption of the spirit by subsequent abstinence, and what you cannot show in the body exhibit in the mind. For these are the riches, and these are the ornaments of your union, which Christ seeks. The words which follow, that you may give yourselves unto prayer, and may be together again, might lead one to suppose that the apostle was expressing a wish, and not making concession, because of the danger of a great fall. He therefore at once adds, lest Satan tempt you for your inconstancy, it is a fine permission which is conveyed in the words, be together again, what it was that he blushed to call by his own name, not only better than a temptation of Satan, and the effective incontinence. We take trouble to discuss, as if it were obscure, although he has explained his meaning by saying, this I say by way of permission, not by way of command, and do we still hesitate to speak of marriage as a concession to weakness, not a thing commanded, as though second and third marriages were not allowed on the same ground, as though the doors of the church were not opened by repentance, even to fornicators, and what is more, to the incestuous, take the case of the man who outraged his stepmother, does not the apostle after delivering him in his first epistle to the Corinthians, to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved, in the second epistle, take the offender back and strive to prevent a brother from being swallowed up by over much grief. The apostles wish, is one thing, is pardon another, if a wish be expressed it confers a right, if a thing is only called pardonable, we are wrong in using it, if you wish to know the apostles real mind, you must take in what follows, but I would that all men were as I am, happy is the man who is like Paul, fortunate is he who attends to the apostles command, not to his own concession. This he says, I wish, this I desire, that ye be imitators of me, as I am also of Christ, who was a virgin born of a virgin, uncorrupt of her who was uncorrupt, we because we are men cannot imitate our Lord's nativity, but we may at least imitate his life. The former was the blessed prerogative of divinity, the latter belongs to our human condition and is part of human effort. I would that all men were like me, that while they are like me, they may also become like Christ, to whom I am like, for he that believeth in Christ ought himself also to walk even as he walked, how be it each man hath his own gift from God, one after this manner and another after that, what I wish he says is clear, but since in the church there is a diversity of gifts, I acquiesce in marriage, lest I should seem to condemn nature, at the same time consider that the gift of virginity is one, that of marriage another, for were the reward the same for the married and for virgins, he would never after enjoining continents have said, each man hath his own gift from God, one after this manner and another after that, where there is distinction in one particular, there is a diversity also in other points. I grant that even marriage is a gift of God, but between gift and gift there is great diversity. In fact, the apostle himself, speaking of the same person who had repented of his incestuous conduct says, so that contrwise, you should rather forgive him and comfort him, and to whom you forgive anything I forgive also, and that we might not think a man's gift contemptible, he adds, for what I also have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, for your sakes have I forgiven it, in the presence of Christ. There is diversity in the gifts of Christ, hence it is that by way of type Joseph has a coat of many colors, and in the 45th Psalm we read, at thy right hand doth stand the queen in a vesture of gold, wrought about with diverse colors, and the apostle Peter says, as heirs together of the manifold grace of God, with a more expressive Greek word, palikitis, i.e. varied, is used. Then come the words, but I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I, but if they have not constancy, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn. Having conceded to married persons the enjoyment of wedlock, and pointed out his own wishes, he passes on to the unmarried and to widows, sets before them his own practice for imitation, and calls them happy if they so abide, but if they have not constancy, let them marry, just as he said before, but because of fornications, and least Satan tempts you because of your incontinency. And he gives a reason for saying, if they have not constancy, let them marry, because it is better to marry than to burn. The reason why it is better to marry is that it is worse to burn. Let burning lust be absence, and he will not say it is better to marry. The word better always implies a comparison with something worse, not a thing absolutely good and incapable of comparison. It is as though he said, it is better to have one eye than neither. It is better to stand on one foot and to support the rest of the body with a stick than to crawl with broken legs. What do you say, Apostle? I do not believe you when you say, though I be rude in speech, yet am I not in knowledge? As humility is the source of the sayings, for I am not worthy to be called an Apostle, and to me who am the least of the Apostles, and as to one born out of due time. So here also, we have an utterance of humility. You know the meaning of the language, or you would not quote Epimandus, Neander, and Aratus. When you are discussing continence and virginity, you say, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, and it is good for them if they abide even as I. And I think that this is good by reason of the present distress, and that it is good for a man so to be. When you come to marriage, you do not say it is good to marry, because you cannot then add than to burn. But you say, it is better to marry than to burn. If marriage in itself be good, do not compare it with fire, but simply say, it is good to marry. I suspect the goodness of that thing which is forced into the position of being only the lesser of two evils. What I want is not a smaller evil, but a thing absolutely good. So good, the first section has been explained. Let us now come to those which follow. But unto the married I give charge. Yea, not I, but the Lord. But the wife depart not from her husband. But if she depart, let her husband remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband, and that the husband leave not his wife. But to the rest say I, not the Lord. If any brother hath an unbelieving wife, and she is content to dwell with him, let him not leave her, and so on to the words, as God hath called each, so let him walk, and so ordain I in all the churches. This passage has no bearing on our present controversy, for he ordains, according to the mind of the Lord, that accepting the cause of fornication, the wife must not be put away. And that a wife who has been put away may not, so long as her husband lives, be married to another, or at all events, that her duty is to be reconciled to her husband. But in the case of those who are already married at the time of conversion, that is to say, supposing that one of the two were a believer, he enjoins that the believer shall not put away the unbeliever. And after stating his reason that the unbeliever who is unwilling to leave the believer, becomes thereby a candidate for the faith. He commands, on the other hand, that if the unbeliever reject the faithful one on account of the faith of Christ, the believer ought to depart, lest husband or wife be preferred to Christ. In comparison with him, we must hold even life itself cheap. At the present day, many women despising the Apostle's command, are joined to heathen husbands, and prostitute the temples of Christ to idols. They do not understand that they are part of his body, though indeed, they are his ribs. The Apostle is lenient to the union of unbelievers who, having believing husbands, afterwards come to believe in Christ. He does not extend this indulgence to those women who, although Christians, have been married to heathen husbands. To these elsewhere, he says, be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. But what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? Or what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with belial? Or what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement hath a temple of God with idols? For we are a temple of the living God. Although I know that crowds of matrons will be furious against me, although I know that just as they have shamelessly despised the Lord, so they will rave at me who am but a flea in the least of Christians, yet I will speak out what I think. I will say what the Apostle has taught me, that they are not on the side of righteousness but of iniquity, not of light but of darkness, that they do not belong to Christ but belial, that they are not temples of the living God, but shrines and idols of the dead. And if you wish to see more clearly how utterly unlawful it is for a Christian woman to marry a Gentile, consider what the same Apostle says. A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth, but if a husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord, that is to a Christian. He who allows second and third marriages in the Lord forbids first marriages with a Gentile, once Abraham also makes his servant swear upon his thigh, that is on Christ, who was to spring from his seed, that he would not bring an alien born as a wife for his son Isaac. And Ezra checked in offense of this kind against God by making his countrymen put away their wives. And the prophet Malachi thus speaks. Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord, which he loveth, and hath married the daughter of a strange God. The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, him that teacheth, and him that learneth, out of the tents of Jacob, and him that offers an offering unto the Lord of hosts. I have said this, that they who compare marriage with virginity may at least know that such marriages as these are on a lower level than digamy and tryamy. In the book 1, chapters 6 through 10, chapters 11 through 15 of Against a Novianius by Saint Jerome, the sleeper box recording is in the public domain. The above discussion the apostle has taught that the believer ought not to depart from the unbeliever, but remain in marriage as the faith found them, and that each man, whether married or single, should continue as he was then baptized into Christ, and then he suddenly introduces the metaphors of circumcision and uncircumcision, a bond and free, and under those metaphors treats of the married and unmarried. Was any man called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let each man abide in the calling wherein he was called. Was thou called being a bond servant? Care not for it, and even if thou canst become free, use it rather. For he that was called in the Lord, being a bond servant, is the Lord's free man. Likewise, he that was called being free is Christ's bond servant. You were bought with a price. Become not bond servants of men. Brethren, let each man wherein he was called therein abide with God. Some, I suppose, will find fault with the Apostle's way of reasoning. I would therefore ask first what we are to infer from his suddenly passing in a discussion concerning husbands and wives to a comparison of Jew and Gentile, bond and free, and then returning when this point is settled to the question about virgins and telling us concerning virgins I have no commandment from the Lord. What has a comparison of Jew and Gentile, bond and free, to do with wedlock and virginity? In the next place, how are we to understand the words hath any being called an uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised, can a man who has lost his foreskin restored again at his pleasure? Then, in what sense are we to explain for he that was called in the Lord, being a bond servant, is the Lord's freeman? Likewise, he that was called being free is Christ's bond servant. Fourthly, how is it that he who commanded servants to obey their masters according to the flesh now says, become not bond servants of men? Lastly, how are we to connect with slavery or with circumcision is saying, brethren, let each man wherein he was called, there in abide with God, which even contradicts his previous opinion. We heard him say, become not bond servants of men. How can we then possibly abide in the vocation wherein we were called? When many at the time they became believers had masters according to the flesh, whose bond servants they are now forbidden to be. Moreover, what has the argument about our abiding in the vocation wherein we were called to do with circumcision, or in another place the same apostle cries aloud, Behold, I, Paul, tell you, if he be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. We must conclude therefore that a higher meaning should be given to circumcision and uncircumcision, bond and free, and that these words must be taken in close connection with what has gone before. Was anyone called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. If he says at the time you were called and became a believer in Christ, if I say you were called being circumcised from a wife, that is unmarried, do not marry a wife, that is, do not become uncircumcised, lest you lay upon the freedom of circumcision and chastity the burden of marriage. Again, if anyone was called an uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised. If you had a wife, he says, when you believed, do not think the faith of Christ a reason for disagreement, because God has called us in peace. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the commandments of God, for neither celibacy nor marriage availeth anything without works, since even faith, which is especially characteristic of Pristians, if it have not works is said to be dead. Investial virgins in Juno's widows might upon these terms be numbered with the saints. Let each man in the vocation wherein he was called, there and abide. Whether he had or had not a wife, when he believed, let him remain in that condition in which he was when called. Accordingly, he does not so strongly urge virgins to be married, as forbid divorce. And as he debars those who have wives from putting them away, so he cuts off from virgins the power of being married. Thou was called being of slave, heed it not, but even if thou canst become free, use it rather. Even if you have, he says a wife, and are bound to her, and pay her due, and have not power over your own body, or if, to speak more clearly, you are the bond-servant of your wife, be not sad upon that accounts, nor sigh for the loss of your virginity. But even if you can find some cases of discord, do not for the sake of thoroughly enjoying the liberty of chastity seek your own welfare by destroying another. Keep your wife a while, and do not go too fast for her lagging footsteps. Wait till she follows. If you are patient, your spouse will become a sister, for he that was called in the Lord, being a bond-servant, is the Lord's freeman. Likewise, he that was called being free is Christ's bond-servant. He gives his reasons for not wishing wives to be forsaken. He therefore says, I command that Gentiles believe on Christ, do not abandon the married state in which they were before embracing the faith. For he who had a wife when he became a believer is not so strictly devoted to the service of God as virgins and unmarried persons. But in a manner, he has more freedom, and the reigns of his bondage are relaxed. And while he is the bond-servant of a wife, he is, so to speak, the freeman of the Lord. Moreover, he who when called by the Lord had not a wife and was free from the bondage of wedlock, he is truly Christ's bond-servant. What happiness to be the bond-servant, not of a wife but of Christ, to serve not the flesh but the Spirit. For he who is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit. There was some fear that by saying, whatst thou called being a bond-servant, care not for it. But even if thou canst become free, use it rather. He might seem to have flouted continence, and to have given us up to the slavery of marriage. He therefore makes a remark which removes all cabal. Ye were bought with a price, become not servants of men. We have been redeemed with the most precious blood of Christ. The Lamb was slain for us, and having been sprinkled with hissup, and the warm drops of his blood. We have rejected poison as pleasure. Why do we, at who's baptism Pharaoh died and all his host was drowned? Again turned back in our hearts to Egypt, and after the manna, angels' food, cypher, the garlic, and the onions, and the cucumbers and Pharaoh's meat. Having discussed marriage and continency, he at length comes to virginity and says, Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give my judgment as one that has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I think therefore that this is good by reason of the present distress, namely that it is good for a man to be as he is. Here our opponent goes utterly wild with exultation. This is his strongest battering ram with which he shakes the wall of virginity. See, he says, The apostle confesses that as regards virgins he has no commandment of the Lord. And he who had with authority laid down the law respecting husbands and wives does not dare to command what the Lord has not enjoined. And rightly too, for what is enjoined is commanded, and what is commanded must be done. And that which must be done implies punishment if it be not done. For it is useless to order a thing to be done and yet leave the individual free to do it or not to do it. If the Lord had commanded virginity he would have seemed to condemn marriage and to do away with the seed plot of mankind of which virginity itself is a growth. If he had cut off the root how is he to expect fruit? If the foundations were not first laid how is he to build the edifice and put on the roof to cover all? Excavators toil hard to remove mountains. The bowels of the earth are pierced in the search for gold. And when the tiny particles first by the blast of the furnace then by the hand of the cunning workmen have been fashioned into an ornament men do not call him blessed to have separated the gold from the draws. But him who wears the beautiful gold? Do not marvel then if placed as we are amid temptations of the flesh and incentives device the angelic life be not exacted of us but merely recommended. If advice be given a man is free to proffer obedience. If there be a command he is a servant bound to compliance. I have no commandment he says of the Lord but I give my judgment as one that had obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. If you have no commandment of the Lord how dare you give judgment without orders? The apostle will reply do you wish me to give orders where the Lord has offered a favor rather than laid down a law? The great creator and fashioner knowing the weakness of the vessel which he made left virginity open to those whom he addressed and shall I the teacher of the Gentiles who have become all things to all men that I might seek gain so I lay upon the necks of weak believers from the very first the burden of perpetual chastity let them begin with short periods of release from the marriage bond and give themselves unto prayer and when they have tasted the sweets of chastity they may desire the perpetual possession of what wherewith they were temporarily delighted the Lord went tempted by the Pharisees and asked whether according to the law of Moses it was permitted to put away a wife forbid the practice altogether after weighing his words the disciples said to him if the case of the man is so with his wife it is not expedient to Mary but he said unto them all men cannot receive this saying but they to whom it is given for there are eunuchs which are so born from their mother's womb and there are eunuchs which are made eunuchs by men and there are eunuchs which made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake he that is able to receive it let him receive it the reason is plain why the apostle said concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord surely because the Lord had previously said all men cannot receive the word but they to whom it is given and he that is able to receive it let him receive it the master of the Christian race offers the reward invites candidates to the course holds in his hand the prize of virginity points to the fountain of purity and cries aloud if any man thirsts let him come unto me and drink he that is able to receive it let him receive it he does not say you must drink you must run willing or unwilling but whoever is willing and able to run into drink he shall conquer he shall be satisfied and therefore Christ loves virgins more than others because they willingly give what was not commanded them and it indicates greater grace to offer what you are not bound to give than to render what is exacted of you the apostles contemplating the burden of a wife exclaimed if the case of a man is so with his wife it is not expedient to marry our Lord's thought well of their view you readily think said he that it is not expedient for a man who is hastening to the kingdom of heaven to take a wife but it is a hard matter and all men do not receive the saying but they to whom it has been given some are eunuchs by nature others by violence of man those eunuchs please me who are such not of necessity but of free choice well only do I take them into my bosom who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake and in order to worship me have renounced the condition of their birth you must now explain the words those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake if they who have made themselves eunuchs have the reward of the kingdom of heaven it follows that they who have not made themselves such cannot be placed with those who have he who is able he says to receive it let him receive it it is a mark of great faith and of great virtue to be the pure temple of god to offer oneself a whole burnt offering and according to the same apostle to be holy both in body and in spirit these are the eunuchs who thinking themselves dry trees because of their impotence here by the mouth of isiah that they have a place prepared in heaven for sons and daughters their type is albed melech the eunuch in teramiah and the eunuch of queen kandas in the acts of the apostles who on account of the strength of his faith gained the name of a man these are they to whom clements who was the successor of the apostle peter and of whom the apostle paul makes mention wrote letters directing almost the whole of his discourse to the subject of virgin purity after them there is a long series of apostolic men martyrs and men illustrious no less for holiness than for eloquence with whom we may very easily become acquainted through their own writings i think therefore he says that it is good for the present distress what is this distress which in contempt of the marriage time longs for the liberty of virginity on to them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days we have not hear a condemnation of harlots and brothels of those damnation there is no doubt but of the swelling womb and the wailing infancy the fruit as well as the work of marriage for it is good for a man so to be if it is good for a man so to be it is bad for a man not so to be art thou bound unto a wife seek not to be loosed art thou loosed from a wife seek not a wife each one of us has his appointed bounds let me have what is mine and keep your own if thou art bound to a wife give her not a bill of divorce if i am loosed from a wife i will not seek a wife as i do not dissolve marriages once contracted so you should not bind what is loosed and at the same time the meaning of the words must be taken into account he who has a wife is regarded as a debtor and he is said to be uncircumcised to be the servant of his wife and like bad servants to be bound but he who has no wife in the first place owes no man anything then is circumcised thirdly is free lastly is loosed let us run through the remaining points for our author is so voluminous that we cannot linger over every detail but and if thou marry thou hast not sinned it is one thing not to sin another to do good and if a virgin marry she hath not sinned not that the virgin who has once for all dedicated herself to the service of god for should one of these marry she will have damnation because she made of no account her first faith but if her adversary objects that this saying relates to widows we reply that it applies with still greater force to virgins since marriage is forbidden even to widows whose previous marriage had been lawful for virgins who marry after consecration are rather incestuous than adulterous and for fear he should by saying and if a virgin marry she hath not sinned again stimulate the unmarried to be married he immediately checks himself by introducing another consideration and validates his previous concession yet says he such shall have tribulation in the flesh or they who shall have tribulation in the flesh they to whom he had before indulgently said but and if thou marry thou hast not sinned and if a virgin marry she hath not sinned yet such shall have tribulation in the flesh we in our inexperience thought that marriage had at least the joys of the flesh but if they who are married have tribulation even in the flesh which is imagined to be the sole source of their pleasure what else is there to marry for when in the spirit and in the mind and in the flesh itself there is tribulation but I would spare you thus he says I alleged tribulation as a motive as though there were not greater obligations to refrain but this I say brethren the time is shortened that henceforth both those that have wives may be as though they had none I am by no means now discussing virgins of whose happiness no one entertains a doubt I am coming to the married the time is short the Lord is at hand even though we live 900 years as did men of old yet we ought to think that short which must one day have an end it seems to be but as things are it is not so much the joy as the tribulation of marriage that is short why do we take wives whom we shall soon be compelled to lose and those that weep and those that rejoice and those that buy and those that use the world as though they wep not as though they rejoice not as though they bought not as though they did not use the world for the fashion of this world path is away if the world which comprehends all things passes away yea if the fashion and intercourse of the world banishes like the clouds amongst the other works of the world marriage too will vanish away or after the resurrection there will be no wedlock but if death be the end of marriage why do we not voluntarily embrace the inevitable why do we not encouraged by the hope of the Lord offers to God that which must be wrong from us against our will he that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord how he may please the Lord but he that is married is careful for the things of the world how he may please his wife and is divided let us look at the difference between the cares of the virgin and those of the married man the virgin longs to please the Lord the husband to please his wife and that he may please her he is careful for the things of the world which will of course pass away with the world and he is divided that is to say is distracted with manifold cares and miseries this is not the place to describe the difficulties of marriage and to revel in rhetorical common places I think I delivered myself fully as regards this point in my argument against Elvidias and in my book which I address to Eustochium at all events Tritonian while still a young man gave himself full play with the subject and my teacher Gregory of Nazianas discussed virginity in marriage in some Greek verses I now briefly beg my reader to note that in the Latin manuscripts we have the reading there is a difference also between the virgin and the wife the words it is true have a meaning of their own and have by me as well as by others being so explained as showing the bearing of the passage that they lack apostolic authority since the apostles words are as we have translated them he is careful for the things of the world how he may please his wife and he is divided having laid down this he passes to the virgins and the continents and says the woman that is unmarried and the virgin thinks of the things of the Lord that she may be holy and body and spirits not every unmarried woman is also a virgin but every virgin is of course unmarried it may be that regard for elegance of expression let him to repeat the same idea by means of another word and speak of a woman unmarried and a virgin or at least he may have wished to give unmarried the definite meaning of virgin so that we might not suppose him to include harlots united to no one by the fixed bonds of wedlock among the unmarried of what then does she that is unmarried and a virgin think the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and spirit supposing there were nothing else and that no greater reward followed virginity this would be motive enough for her choice to think of the things of the Lord but he immediately points out the contents of her thought that she may be holy both in body and spirit but there are virgins in the flesh not in the spirit whose body is intact their soul corrupt but that virgin is a sacrifice to God whose mind has not been defiled by thought nor her flesh by lust on the other hand she who is married thinks of the things of the world how she may please her husband just as the man who has a wife is anxious for the things of the world how he may please his wife so the married woman thinks of the things of the world how she may please her husband we are not of this world which lieth in wickedness the fashion of which path is away and concerning which the Lord said to the apostles if he were of the world the world would love its own unless perchance someone might suppose that he was laying the heavy burden of chastity on unwilling shoulders he at once adds his reasons for persuading to it and says in this I say for your prophet not that I may cast a snare upon you but for that which is seemly and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction the latin words do not convey the meaning of the greek what word shall we use to render prosto ev kiron kai ev prostotron to kirio epe vestarius the difficulty of translation accounts for the fact that the clause is completely wanting in latin manuscripts but us however use the passage as we have translated it the apostle does not lay a snare upon us nor does he compel us to be what we do not wish to be but he gives his advice as to what is fair and seemly he would have us attend upon the Lord and ever be anxious about that service and await the Lord's will so that like active and well armed soldiers we may obey orders and may do so without distraction which according to ecclesiasties is given to men of this world that they may be exercised thereby but if anyone considers that his virgin that is his flesh his wonton and boiling with lust it cannot be brittle and he must do one of two things either take a wife or fall let him do what he will he does not sin if he marry let him do he says what he will not what he ought he does not sin if he marries a wife yet he does not well if he marry but he that standeth fast in his heart having no necessity but hath power as touching his own will and hath determined this in his own heart to keep his own virgin shall do well so then both he that giveth his own virgin in marriage doeth well and he that giveth her not in marriage shall do better with mark propiety he had previously said he who marries a wife does not sin here he tells us he that keepeth his own virgin doeth well but it is one thing not to sin another to do well depart from evil he says and do good the former we forsake the latter we follow in this last lies perfection but whereas he says and he that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well it might be supposed that our remark does not hold good he therefore forthwith detracts from this seeming good and puts its in the shade by comparing it with another and saying and he that giveth her not in marriage shall do better if he had not intended to draw the inference of doing better he would never have previously referred to doing well but where there is something good and something better the reward is not in both cases the same and where the reward is not one and the same there of course the gifts are different the difference then between marriage and virginity is as great as that between not sinning and doing well they rather to speak less harshly as great as between good and better he that has ended his discussion of wedlock and virginity and has carefully steered between the two precepts without turning to the right hand or to the left he has followed the royal road and fulfilled the command not to be righteous over much now again he compares monogamy with tagogamy and as he had subordinated marriage to virginity so he makes second marriages inferior to the first and says a wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth but if the husband be dead she is free to be married to whom she will only in the Lord but she is happier if she abide as she is after my judgment and I think that I also have the Spirit of God he allows second marriages but to such persons as wish for them and are not able to contain lest having waxed once on against Christ they desire to marry having condemnation because they have rejected their first faith and he makes the concession because many had already turned aside after satan but says he they will be happier if they abide as they are and he immediately adds the weight of the apostolic authority after my judgment and that an apostles authority might not like that of an ordinary man be without weight he added and I think that I also have the Spirit of God when he incites to continents it is not the judgment or spirit of man but by the judgment in spirit of God when however he grants the indulgence of marriage he does not mention the spirit of God but wastes his judgment with wisdom and adapts the severity of the strain to the weakness of the individual in this sense we must take the whole of the following passage with woman that hath and husband is bound by law to the husband while he liveth but if the husband dies she is discharged from the law of the husband so then if while the husband liveth she be joined to another man she shall be called an adulteress but if the husband dies she is free from the law so that she is no longer an adulteress though she be joined to another man and similarly the words to Timothy I desire therefore that the younger widows marry, bear children, rule the household give none occasion to the adversary for the viling for already some are turned aside after Satan and so on whereas on accounts of the danger of fornication he allows virgins to marry and makes that excusable which in itself is not desirable so to avoid this same fornication he allows second marriages to widows or it is better to know a single husband though he be a second or third than to have many paramours that is it is more tolerable for a woman to prostitute herself to one man than to many at all events this is so if the Samaritan woman in John's Gospel who said that she had her sick husband was reproved by the Lord because he was not her husband for where there are more husbands than one the proper idea of a husband who is a single person is destroyed at the beginning one rib was turned into one wife and they too he says shall be one flesh not three or four otherwise how can they be any longer too if they are several my man of blood and a murderer was the first to divided one flesh between two wives for natricide and daigami were abolished by the same punishments that of the deluge the one was avenged seven times the other seventy times seven the guilt is as widely different as are the numbers what the holiness of a second marriage is appears from this that a person twice married cannot be enrolled in the ranks of the clergy and so the apostle tells Timothy let none be enrolled as a widow under three score years old having been the wife of one man the whole command concerns those widows were supported on the alms of the church the age is therefore limited so that those only may receive the food of the poor who can no longer work and at the same time consider that she who has had two husbands even though she be a widow decrepits and in wants is not a worthy recipients of the church's funds but if she be deprived of the bread of charity how much more is she deprived of that bread which comeeth down from heaven and in which if a man eat unworthily he shall be guilty of outrage offered to the body and the blood of Christ the passages however which I have adduced in support of my position and in which it is permitted to widows if they so desire to marry again are interpreted by some concerning those widows who had lost their husbands and were found in that condition on the decant Christians or supposing a person baptized and her husband dead he would not be consistent if the apostle were to bid her marry another when he enjoins even those who have wives to be as though they had them not and this is why the number of wives which a man may take is not defined because when Christian baptism has been received even though a third or fourth wife has been taken she is reckoned as the first otherwise if after baptism and after the death of the first husband a second is taken why should not a sixth after the death of the third, fourth and fifth and so on for it is possible that through some strange misfortune or by the judgment of God coming short, repeated marriages a young woman may have several husbands while an old woman may be left a widow by her first husband in extreme age the first Adam was married once the second was unmarried but the supporters of second marriages show us as their leader a third Adam who was twice married but granted that Paul allowed second marriages upon the same grounds it follows that he allows even third and fourth marriages a woman may marry as often as her husband dies the apostle was forced to choose many things which he did not like he circumcised Timothy and shaved his own head practiced going barefoot let his hair grow long and cut it at Centurion and he had certainly chastised the Galatians in Blaine Peter because for the sake of Jewish observances he separated himself from the Gentiles as then another points connected with the discipline of the church he was a Jew to the Jews a Gentile to the Gentiles and was made all things to all men that he might gain all so too he allowed second marriages to a continent persons and did not limit the number of marriages in order that women although they saw themselves permitted to take a second husband in the same way as a third or fourth was allowed might blush to take a second at least they should be compared to those who were three or four times married if more than one husband be allowed it makes no difference whether he be a second or third because there is no longer a question of single marriage all things are lawful but not all things are expedient I do not condemn second nor third nor pardon the expression eighth marriages I will go still further and say that I welcome even a penitent hormonger things that are equally lawful must be weighed in an even balance end of chapters 10 through 15 of book 1 book 1 chapters 16 through 20 of against juvenianius by saint Jerome this lever box recording is in the public domain but he takes us to the Old Testament and beginning with Adam goes on to Zacharias and Elizabeth the next confronts us with Peter and the rest of the apostles we are therefore bound to traverse the same course of argument and show that chastity was always preferred to the condition of marriage but as regards Adam and Eve we must maintain that before the fall they were virgins in paradise but after they sinned and were cast out of paradise they were immediately married then we have the passage for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the twain shall become one flesh an explanation of which the apostles straight away adds this mystery is great but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church Christ in the flesh is a virgin in the spirit he is once married for he has one church concerning which the same apostle says husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church if Christ loves the church holy chastily and without spot let husbands also love their wives in chastity and let everyone know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor not in the lust of concupiscence as the Gentiles who know not God for God called us not for uncleanness but in sanctification seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings and have put on the new man which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him where there cannot be male and female Greek and Jew circumcision and uncircumcision barbarian, Scythian, Bodman, Freeman but Christ is all and in all the link of marriage is not found in the image of the Creator when difference of sex is done away and we were putting off the old man and putting on the new then we are being born again into Christ a virgin who was both born of a virgin and is born again through virginity and whereas he says be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth it was necessary for us to plant the wood and to let it grow so that there might be an aftergrowth for cutting down and at the same time we must bear in mind the meaning of the phrase replenish the earth marriage replenishes the earth virginity fills paradise this too we must observe at least if we would faithfully follow the Hebrew that while the scripture on the first third fourth fifth and sixth day relates that having finished the works of each God saw that it was good on the second day it admitted this all together leaving us to understand that two is not a good number because it destroys unity and prefigures the marriage compact hence it was that all the animals which Noah took into the ark by pairs were unclean odd numbers denote cleanness and yet by the double number is represented another mystery that not even in the beasts and unclean birds is second marriage approved for unclean animals went in two and two and clean ones by sevens so that Noah after the flood might be able to immediately offer to God sacrifices from the latter but if Enoch was translated and nor was preserved at the deluge I do not think that Enoch was translated because he had a wife but because he was the first to call upon God and to believe in the Creator and the apostle Paul fully instructs us concerning him in the epistle to the Hebrews no more over was preserved as a kind of second route for the human race must of course be preserved together with his wife and sons although in this there is a scripture mystery the ark according to the apostle Paul was a type of the church in which eight souls were saved when Noah entered into it both he and his sons were separated from their wives but when he landed from it they united in pairs and what had been separated in the ark that is in the church was joined together in the intercourse of the world and at the same time if the ark had many compartments and little chambers and was made with second and third stories and was filled with different beasts and was furnished with dwellings great or small according to the kind of animal I think all this diversity in the compartments was a figure of the manifold character of the church he raises the objection that when God gave his second blessing permission was granted to eat flesh which had not in the first benediction been allowed you should know that just as divorce according to the Savior's word was not permitted from the beginning but on account of the hardness of our heart was the concession of Moses to the human race so too the eating of flesh was unknown until the deluge but after the deluge like the quails given in the desert to the murmuring people the poison of flesh meat was offered to our teeth the apostle writing to the Ephesians teaches that God had purposed in the fullness of time to sum up in renew in Christ Jesus all things which are in heaven and on earth when it's also the Savior himself in the revelation of John says I am alpha and omega the beginning and the ending at the beginning of the human race we neither ate flesh nor gave bills of divorce nor suffered circumcision for a sign thus we reached the deluge but after the deluge together with the giving of the law which no one could fulfill flesh was given for food and divorce was allowed to hard-hearted men and the knife of circumcision was applied as though the hand of God had fashioned us with something superfluous but once Christ has come in the end of time and omega passed into alpha and turned the end into the beginning we are no longer allowed to divorce nor are we circumcised nor do we eat flesh for the apostle says it is good not to eat flesh nor to drink wine but wine as well as flesh was consecrated after the deluge what shall I say of Abraham who had three wives a juvenianius says and received circumcision as a sign of his faith if we follow him in the number of his wives let us also follow him in circumcision we must not partly follow partly reject him Isaac moreover the husband of one wife Rebecca prefigures the church of Christ and reproves the wantonness of second marriage and if Jacob had two pairs of wives and concubines and our opponent will not admit that blear-eyed Leah ugly and prolific was a type of the synagogue but that Rachel beautiful and long barren indicated the mystery of the church let me remind him that when Jacob did this thing he was among the Assyrians and Mesopotamia in bondage to a hard master when he wished to enter the holy land he raised on Mount Ghalid a heap of witness in token that the Lord of Mesopotamia had failed to find anything among his baggage and there swore that he would never return to the place of his bondage and went after wrestling with the angel at the brook of Jabok he began to limp because the great muscle of his thigh was withered he had once gained the name of Israel then the wife whom he once loved and for whom he had served was slain by the son of sorrow near Bethlehem which was destined to be the birthplace of our Lord the herald of virginity and the intimacies of Mesopotamia died in the land of the gospel but I wonder why he said Judah and Tamar before us for an example unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure or Onan was slain because he begrudged his brother's seed does he imagine that we approve any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children as regards Moses it is clear that he would have been in peril at the end if Saphira which is by interpretation a bird had not circumcised her son and cut off the foreskin of marriage with the knife which prefigured the gospel this is that Moses who when he saw a great vision and heard an angel or the Lord speaking in the bush could not by any means approach to him without first loosing the latchet of his shoe that is putting off the bonds of marriage but we need not be surprised at this in the case of one who was a prophet law giver and the friend of God seeing that all the people were about to draw night to Mount Sinai and to hear the voice speaking to them were commanded to sanctify themselves in three days and keep themselves from their wives I am speaking out of order in violating historical sequence but I may point out that the same thing was said by Abimelech the priest to David when he fled to Knob if only the young men have kept themselves from women and David answered of a truth about these three days for the showbread like the body of Christ might not be eaten by those who rose from the marriage bed and in passing we ought to consider the words if only the young men have kept themselves from women the truth is that in view of the purity of the body of Christ all sexual intercourse is unclean and the law also it is enjoined that the high priest must not marry any but a virgin nor must he take to wife widow if a virgin and a widow are on the same level how is it that one is taken and the other rejected and the widow of a priest is bitten by in the house of her father and not to contract a second marriage if the sister of a priest dies in virginity just as the priest is commanded to go to the funeral of his father and mother so must he go to hers but if she be married she is despised as though she belonged not to him he who has married a wife and he who has planted a vineyard an image of the propagation of children is forbidden to go to the battle for he who is the slave of his wife cannot be the large soldier and the laver in the tabernacle was cast from the mirrors of the women who fasted signifying the bodies of pure virgins and within in the sanctuary both the cherubim and the mercy seats and the ark of the covenants and the table of showbread and the candlestick and the censer were made of the purest gold for silver might not be brought into the holy of holies End of chapters 16 through 20 from book one book one chapters 21 through 25 of against Jovinianus by Saint Jerome this LibriVox recording is in the public domain I must not linger over Moses but my purpose is at full speed to lightly touch on each topic and to sketch the outline of a proper knowledge of my subject I will pass to Joshua the son of Nun who was previously called Aus or better in the Hebrew Osi that is savior for he according to the epistle of Jude saved the people of Israel and led them forth out of Egypt and brought them into the land of promise as soon as this Joshua reached the Jordan the waters of marriage which had ever flowed in the land dried up and stood in one heap and the whole people barefooted and on dry ground crossed over and came to Gilgal and there was a second time circumcised if we take this literally we cannot possibly stand for if we had two foreskins or if another could grow after the first was cut off there would be room for the speaking of a second circumcision but the meaning is that Joshua circumcised the people who had crossed the desert with the gospel knife and he circumcised them with a stone knife that what in the case of Moses' son was befigured in a few might under Joshua be fulfilled in all moreover the very foreskins were heaped together and buried and covered with earth and the fact that the reproach of Egypt was taken away in the name of the place Gilgal which is by interpretation revelation show that while the people wandered in the desert uncircumcised their eyes were blinded let us see what follows after this gospel circumcision in the consecration of twelve stones at the place of revelation the Passover was immediately celebrated a lamb was slain for them and they ate the food of the holy land Joshua went forth and was met by the prince of the host sword in hand that is either to show that he was ready to fight for the circumcised people or to sever the tie of marriage and in the same way that Moses was commanded so was he loose thy shoe for the place where on thou standest is holy ground for if the armed host of the Lord was represented by the trumpets of the priests we may see in Jericho a type of the overthrow of the world by the preaching of the gospel and pass over endless details for it is not my purpose now to unfold all the mysteries of the Old Testament the five kings who previously reigned in the land of promise and opposed the gospel army were overcome in battle with Joshua I think it is clearly to be understood that before the Lord led his people from Egypt and circumcised them sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch had the dominion and that's to these as to the five princes everything was subject and when they took part in the cave of the body and in the place of darkness Jesus entered the body itself and slew them that the source of their power might be the instrument of their death it is now time for us to raise the standard of Joshua's chastity it is written that Moses had a wife now Moses is interpreted both by our Lord and by the apostle to mean the law they have Moses and the prophets and death reigned from Adam until Moses even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression and no one doubts that in both passages Moses signifies the law we read that Moses that is the law had a wife show me then in the same way that Joshua the son of none had either wife or children and if you can do so I will confess that I am beaten he certainly received the fairest spot in the division of land of Judah and died in the 20s which are ever unlucky in scripture but them are reckoned by the years of Jacob's service the price of Joseph and sundry presence which Esau who was fond of them received but in the tens whose praises we have often sung and he was buried in Tamnath Sahr that is most perfect sovereignty or among those of a new covering to signify the crowds of virgins covered by the Savior's aid on Mount Ephraim that is the fruitful mountain on the north of the mountain of Ka'ash which is being interpreted disturbance for Mount Zion is on the sides of the north the city of the great king is ever exposed to hatred in every trial says but my feet had well nigh slipped the book which bears the name of Joshua ends with his burial again in the book of Judges we read of him as though he had risen and come to life again and by way of summary his works are extolled we read too so Joshua sent the people away every man unto his inheritance that they might possess the land and Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and so on there immediately follows and Joshua the son of Nun the servant of the Lord died being 110 years old Moses moreover only saw the land of promise he could not enter and he died in the land of Moab and the Lord buried him in the valley in the land of Moab over against Beth Pior but no man knoweth of his sepulchre until this day let us compare the burial of the two Moses died in the land of Moab Joshua in the land of Judah the former was buried in a valley over against the house of Fogor which is being interpreted reproach for the Hebrew Fogor corresponds to Priapus the latter in Mount Ephraim on the north of Mount Gash and in the simple expressions of the sacred scriptures there is always a more subtle meeting the Jews gloried in children and in childbearing and the barren woman who had not offspring in Israel was accursed but blessed was he who seed was in Zion in his family in Jerusalem and part of the high blessing was thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine in the innermost parts of thy house thy children like olive plants round thy table therefore his grave is described as placed in a valley over against the house of an idol which was in a special sense consecrated to lust but we who fight under Joshua are leader even to the present day know not where Moses was buried but we despise Fogor and all his shame knowing that they who are in the flesh cannot please God and the Lord before the flood had said my spirit shall not abide in man forever for that he also is flesh wherefore when Moses died the people of Israel mourned for him but Joshua like one on his way to victory was unmoored for marriage ends at death virginity thereafter begins to wear the crown next he brings forward Samson and does not consider that the Lord's Nazarite was once shaven balled by a woman and although Samson continued to be a type of the Savior because he loved to harlots from among the Gentiles which harlot corresponds to the church and because she slew more enemies in his death than he did in his life that he does not set an example of conjugal chastity and he surely reminds us of Jacob's prophecy he was shaken by his runaway steed bitten by an adder and fell backwards but why he enumerated Deborah and Barak and the wife of Herber the Kenites I am at a loss to understand for it is one thing to draw up a list of military commanders in historical sequence another to indicate certain figures of marriage which cannot be found in them and whereas he prefers the fidelity of the Father Jephthah to the tears of the virgin daughter that makes for us for we are not commending virgins of the world so much as those who are virgins for Christ's sake and most Hebrews blame the Father for the rash bow he made if thou wilt indeed deliver the children of Amon into mine hand then it shall be that whatsoever come a fourth of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Amon it shall be for the Lord and I will offer it up for a burnt offering supposing they say a dog or an ass had met him what would he have done the meaning is that God so ordered events that he who had improvidently made a vow should learn his error by the death of his daughter and if Saul who was brought up in the tabernacle married a wife how does that prejudice virginity as if at the present day also there were not many married priests and as though the apostle did not describe a bishop as a husband of one wife having children with purity at the same time we must not forget that Samuel was a Levite not a priest or high priest and so it was that his mother made for him a linen ethod that is a linen garment to go over the shoulders which was the proper dress of the Levites and of the inferior order and so he is not named in the Psalms among the priests but among those who call upon the name of the Lord Moses and Aaron among his priests and Samuel among those who call upon his name for Levi Begat Colhath Colhath Begat Amidadab Amidadab Begat Chorath Chorath Begat Asir Asir Begat Alkenna Alkenna Begat Zulf Begat Tahath Tahath Begat Elial Elial Begat Jerome Jerome Begat Alkenna Alkenna Begat Samuel and no one doubts that the priests sprang from the stock of Aaron Eleazar and Phineas and seeing that they had wives they would be rightly brought against us if led away by the heir of the Ancretites we were to maintain that marriage deserved censure and our high priests were not after the order of Nolchizedek without father without mother Adjeni Loetis that is unmarried and much fruit truly did Samuel reap from his children he himself pleased God but Begat such children as displeased the Lord but if in support of second marriage he urges the instance of Boaz in Ruth let him know that in the church St. Matthew chapter 1 6 to typify the church even Rahab the harlot is reckoned among our Lord's ancestors he boasts that David bought his wife for 200 foreskins but he should remember that David had numerous other wives and afterwards received Mikhail Saul's daughter whom her father had delivered to another and when he was old got heat from the embrace of the Shumanites maiden and I do not say this because I am bold enough to disparage holy men but because it is one thing to live under the law another to live under the gospel David slew Uriah the Hittite and committed adultery with Bathsheba and because he was a man of blood the reference is not as something to his wars but to the murder he was not permitted to build the temple of the Lord but as for us if we cause one of the least to stumble and if we say to a brother Raqqa or use our eyes improperly if we were good that a millstone were hanged about our neck we shall be in danger of Gehenna and a mere glance will be reckoned to us for adultery he passes on to Solomon through whom wisdom itself saying its own praises seeing that not content with dwelling upon his praises he calls him Uxurius I am surprised that he did not add the words of the canicles there are three score queens and four score concubines and maidens without number and those of the first book of kings and he had 700 wives princesses and 300 concubines and others without number these are they who turned away his heart from the Lord and yet before he had many wives he fell into sins of the flesh at the beginning of his reign and in his early years he built a temple to the Lord for everyone is judged not by what he will be but for what he is but if Jovinianus approves the example of Solomon he will no longer be in favor of second and third marriages only but unless he has 700 wives and 300 concubines he cannot be the king's antitype or attain to his merit I earnestly again and again remind you my reader that I am compelled to speak as I do and that I do not disparage our predecessors under the law but I'm well aware that they served their generation according to their circumstances and fulfilled the Lord's command to increase and multiply and replenish the earth and what is more they were figures of those that were to come but we to whom it is said that the time is shortened that henceforth those who have wives be as though they had none have a different command and for us virginity is consecrated by the virgin savior what folly it was to include Elijah and Elisha in the list of married men is plain without a word for me but since John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah and John was a virgin it is clear that he came not only in Elijah's spirit but also in his bodily chastity then the passage relating to Hezekiah might be adduced although Jovinianus with his wanton stupidity did not notice it in which after his recovery and the addition of 15 years to his life he said now I will beget children it must be remembered however that in the Hebrew text the passage is not so but runs thus the father to the children shall make known thy faithfulness nor need we wonder that Hulda the prophetess and the wife of Shalom was consulted by Josiah the king of Judah when the captivity was approaching and the wrath of the Lord was falling upon Jerusalem since it is the rule of Scripture when holy men fail to praise women to the reproach of men and it is superfluous to speak of Daniel for the Hebrews to the present day affirm the three youths were eunuchs in accordance with the declaration of God which Isaiah uttered to Hezekiah and have thy sons that shall issue from thee which thou shalt beget shall they take away and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon and again in Daniel we read and the king spake unto Ashpenez the master of his eunuchs that he should bring in certain of the children of Israel even of the seed royal and of the nobles youth in whom was no blemish but well favored and skilled in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge and understanding in science the conclusion is then if Daniel and the three youths were chosen from the seed royal and if Scripture foretold that there should be eunuchs of the seed royal these men were those who were made eunuchs if he meets us with the arguments that in Ezekiel it is said that Noah, Daniel, and Job in a sinful land could not free their sons and daughters we reply that the words are used hypothetically Noah and Job were not in existence at that time we know that they lived many ages before and the meaning is this if there were such and such men in a sinful land they shall not be able to save their own sons and daughters because the righteousness of the Father shall not save the son nor shall the sin of one be imputed to another for the soul that sineth it shall die this too must be said that Daniel as the history of his book shows was taken captive with King Joachim at the same time that Ezekiel was also led into captivity how then could he have sons who was still a youth and only three years had elapsed when he was brought in to wait upon the king but no one supposed that Ezekiel at this time remembers Daniel as a man not as a youth for it came to pass he says in the sixth year that is of King Joachim in the sixth month in the fifth day of the month and as I sat in my house and the elders of Judah sat for me yet on that same day it was said to him though these three men Noah Daniel and Job were in it Daniel was therefore a youth and known to the people either on account of his interpretation of the king's dreams or on account of the release of Susanna and the slaying of the elders and it is clearly proved at the time these things were spoken of Noah Daniel and Job Daniel was still a youth and could not have had sons and daughters whom he might say by his righteousness so far concerning the law end of book one chapters 21 through 25