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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 06 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 26.01.41 Letters CXXIII Part 2
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12. The creation of the first man should teach us to reject more marriages than one. There was but one Adam and but one Eve; in fact the woman was fashioned from a rib of Adam.hyperlink Thus divided they were subsequently joined together in marriage; in the words of scripture "the twain shall be one flesh," not two or three. "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife."hyperlink Certainly it is not said "to his wives." Paul in explaining the passage refers it to Christ and the church;hyperlink making the first Adam a monogamist in the flesh and the second a monogamist in the spirit As there is one Eve who is "the mother of all living,"hyperlink so is there one church which is the parent of all Christians. And as the accursed Lamech made of the first Eve two separate wives,hyperlink so also the heretics sever the second into several churches which, according to the apocalypse of John, ought rather to be called synagogues of the devil than congregations of Christ.hyperlink In the Book of Songs we read as follows:-"there are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her."hyperlink It is to this choice one that the same John addresses an epistle in these words, "the elder unto the elect lady and her children."hyperlink So too in the case of the ark which the apostle Peter interprets as a type of the church,hyperlink Noah brings in for his three sons one wife apiece and not two.hyperlink Likewise of the unclean animals pairs only are taken, male and female, to shew that digamy has no place even among brutes, creeping things, crocodiles and lizards. And if of the clean animals there are seven taken of each kind,hyperlink that is, an uneven number; this points to the palm which awaits virginal chastity. For on leaving the ark Noah sacrificed victims to Godhyperlink not of course of the animals taken by twos for these were kept to multiply their species, but of those taken by sevens some of which had been set apart for sacrifice.
13. It is true that the patriarchs had each of them more wives than one and that they had numerous concubines besides. And as if their example was not enough, David had many wives and Solomon a countless number. Judah went in to Tamar thinking her to be a harlot;hyperlink and according to the letter that killeth the prophet Hosea married not only a whore but an adulteress.hyperlink If these instances are to justify us let us neigh after every woman that we meet;hyperlink like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah let us be found by the last day buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage;hyperlink and let us only end our marrying with the close of our lives. And if both before and after the deluge the maxim held good: "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth:"hyperlink what has that to do with us upon whom the ends of the ages are come,hyperlink unto whom it is said, "the time is short,"hyperlink and "now the axe is laid unto the root of the trees;"hyperlink that is to say, the forests of marriage and of the law must be cut down by the chastity of the gospel. There is "a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracin."hyperlink Owing to the near approach of the captivity Jeremiah is forbidden to take a wife.hyperlink In Babylon Ezekiel says: "my wife is dead and my mouth is opened."hyperlink Neither he who wished to marry nor he who had married could in wedlock prophesy freely. In days gone by men rejoiced to hear it said of them: "thy children shall be like olive plants round about thy table," and "thou shalt seethy children's children."hyperlink But now it is said of those who live in continence: "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit;"hyperlink and "my soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me."hyperlink Then it was said "an eye for an eye;" now the commandment is "whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."hyperlink In those days men said to the warrior: "gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty;"hyperlink now it is said to Peter: "put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."hyperlink
In speaking thus I do not mean to sever the law from the gospel, as Marcionhyperlink falsely does. No, I receive one and the same God in both who, as the time and the object vary, is both the Beginning and the End, who sows that He may reap, who plants that He may have somewhat to cut down, and who lays the foundation that in the fulness of time He may crown the edifice. Besides, if we are to deal with symbols and types of things to come, we must judge of them not by our own opinions but in the light of the apostle's explanations. Hagar and Sarah, or Sinai and Zion, are typical of the two testaments.hyperlink Leah who was tender-eyed and Rachel whom Jacob lovedhyperlink signify the synagogue and the church. So likewise do Hannah and Peninnah of whom the former, at first barren, afterwards exceeded the latter in fruitfulness. In Isaac and Rebekah we see an early example of monogamy: it was only to Rebekah that the Lord revealed Himself in the hour of childbirth and she alone went of herself to enquire of the Lord.hyperlink What shall I say of Tamar who bore twin sons, Pharez and Zarah?hyperlink At their birth was broken down that middle wall of partition which typified the division existing between the two peoples;hyperlink while the binding of Zarah's hand with the scarlet thread even then marked the conscience of the Jews with the stain of Christ's blood. And how shall I speak of the whore married by the prophethyperlink who is a figure either of the church as gathered in from the Gentiles or-an interpretation which better suits the passage-of the synagogue? First adopted from among the idolaters by Abraham and Moses, this has now denied the Saviour and proved unfaithful to Him. Therefore it has long been deprived of its altar, priests, and prophets and has to abide many days for its first husband.hyperlink For when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in, all Israel shall be saved.hyperlink
14. I have tried to compress a great deal into a limited space as a draughtsman does when he delineates a large country in a small map. For I wish to deal with other questions, the first of which I shall give in Anna's words to her sister Dido:
Why waste your youth alone in ceaseless grief
Unblest with offspring, sweetest gift of love?
Think you the buried dead require this?
To whom the sufferer thus briefly replies:
'Twas you, my sister, you, who were the first
To plunge my frenzied soul into this woe.
Why could I not have lived a virgin life
Like some wild creature innocent of care?
Alas! I pledged my soul unto the dead:
I vowed a vow and I have broken it.hyperlink You set before me the joys of wedlock. I for my part will remind you of Dido's sword and pyre and funeral flames. In marriage there is not so much good to be hoped for as there is evil which may happen and must be feared. Passion when indulged always brings repentance with it; it is never satisfied, and once quenched it is soon kindled anew. Its growth or decay is a matter of habit; led like a captive by impulse it refuses to obey reason. But you will argue, `the management of wealth and property requires the superintendence of a husband.' Do you mean to say that the affairs of those who live single are ruined; and that, unless you make yourself as much a slave as your own servants, you will not be able to govern your household? Do not your grandmother, your mother and your aunt enjoy even more than their old influence and respect, looked up to as they are by the whole province and by the leaders of the churches? Do not soldiers and travellers manage their domestic affairs and give entertainments to one another with no wives to help them?hyperlink Why can you not have grave and elderly servants or freed-men, such as those who have nursed you inyour childhood, to preside over your house, to answer public calls, to pay taxes; men who will look up to you as a patroness, who will love you as a nursling, who will revere you as a saint? "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."hyperlink If you are careful for raiment the gospel bids you "consider the lilies;" and, if for food, to go back to the fowls which "sow not neither do they reap; yet your heavenly father feedeth them."hyperlink How many virgins and widows there are who have looked after their property for themselves without thereby incurring any stain of scandal!
15. Do not associate with young women or cleave to them, for it is on account of such that the apostle makes his concession of second marriage, and so you may be shipwrecked in what appears to be calm water. If Paul can say to Timothy, "the younger widows refuse,"hyperlink and again "love the elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity,"hyperlink what plea can you urge for refusing to hear my admonitions? Avoid all persons to whom a suspicion of evil living may attach itself, and do not content yourself with the trite answer. `my own conscience is enough for me; I do not care what people say of me.' That was not the principle on which the apostle acted. He provided things honest not only in the sight of God but in the sight of all men;hyperlink that the name of God might not be blasphemed among the Gentiles.hyperlink Though he had power to lead about a sister, a wife,hyperlink he would not do so, for he did not wish to be judged by an unbeliever's conscience.hyperlink And, though he might have lived by the gospel,hyperlink he laboured day and night with his own hands, that he might not be burdensome to the believers.hyperlink "If meat," he says, "make my brother to offend. I will eat no flesh while the world standeth."hyperlink Let us then say, if a sister or a brother causes not one or two but the whole church to offend, `I will not see that sister or that brother.' It is better to lose a portion of one's substance than to imperil the salvation of one's soul. It is better to lose that which some day, whether we like it or not, must be lost to us and to give it up freely, than to lose that for which we should sacrifice all that we have. Which of us can add-I will not say a cubit for that would be an immense addition-but the tenth part of a single inch to his stature? Why are we careful what we shall eat or what we shall drink? Let us "take no thought for the morrow: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."hyperlink
Jacob in his flight from his brother left behind in his father's house great riches and made his way with nothing into Mesopotamia. Moreover, to prove to us his powers of endurance, he took a stone for his pillow. Yet as he lay there he beheld ladder set up on the earth reaching to heaven and behold the Lord stood above it, and the angels ascended and descended on it;hyperlink the lesson being thus taught that the sinner must not despair of salvation nor the righteous man rest secure in his virtue.hyperlink To pass over much of the story (for there is no time to explain all the points in the narrative) after twenty years he who before had passed over Jordan with his staff returned into his native land with three droves of cattle, rich in flocks and herds and richer still in children.hyperlink The apostles likewise travelled throughout the world without either money in their purses, or staves in their hands, or shoes on their feet;hyperlink and yet they could speak of themselves as "having nothing and yet possessing all things."hyperlink "Silver and gold," say they, "have we none, but such as we have give we thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk."hyperlink For they were not weighed down with the burthen of riches. Therefore they could stand, as Elijah, in the crevice of the rock, they could pass through the needle's eye, and behold the back parts of the Lord.hyperlink
But as for us we burn with covetousness and, even while we declaim against the love of money, we hold out our skirts to catch gold and never have enough.hyperlink There is a common saying about the Megarians which may rightly be applied to all who suffer from this passion: "They build as if they are to live forever; they live as if they are to die to-morrow." We do the same, for we do not believe the Lord's words. When we attain the age which all desire we forget the nearness of that death which as human beings we owe to nature and with futile hope promise to ourselves a long length of years. No old man is so weak and decrepit as to suppose that he will not live for one year more. A forgetfulness of his true condition gradually creeps upon him; so that-earthly creature that he is and close to dissolution as he stands-he is lifted up into pride, and in imagination seats himself in heaven.
16. But what am I doing? Whilst I talk about the cargo, the vessel itself founders. He that lettethhyperlink is taken out of the way, and yet we do not realize that Antichrist is near. Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ "shall consume with the spirit of his mouth."hyperlink "Woe unto them," he cries, "that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days."hyperlink Now these things are both the fruits of marriage.
I shall now say a few words of our present miseries. A few of us have hitherto survived them, but this is due not to anything we have done ourselves but to the mercy of the Lord. Savage tribes in countless numbers have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemanni and-alas! for the commonweal!-even Pannonians. For "Assur also is joined with them."hyperlink The once noble city of Moguntiacumhyperlink has been captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred. The people of Vangiumhyperlink after standing a long siege have been extirpated. The powerful city of Rheims, the Ambiani, the Altrebatae,hyperlink the Belgians on the skirts of the world, Tournay, Spires, and Strasburg have fallen to Germany: while the provinces of Aquitaine and of the Nine Nations, of Lyons and of Narbonne are with the exception of a few cities one universal scene of desolation. And those which the sword spares without, famine ravages within. I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse which has been kept from failing hitherto by the merits of its reverend bishop Exuperius.hyperlink Even the Spains are on the brink of ruin and tremble daily as they recall the invasion of the Cymry; and, while others suffer misfortunes once in actual fact, they suffer them continually in anticipation.
17. I say nothing of other places that I may not seem to despair of God's mercy. All that is ours now from the Pontic Sea to the Julian Alps in days gone by once ceased to be ours. For thirty years the barbarians burst the barrier of the Danube and fought in the heart of the Roman Empire. Long use dried our tears. For all but a few old people had been born either in captivity or during a blockade, and consequently they did not miss a liberty which they had never known. Yet who will hereafter credit the fact or what histories will seriously discuss it, that Rome has to fight within her own borders not for glory but for bare life; and that she does not even fight but buys the right to exist by giving gold and sacrificing all her substance? This humiliation has been brought upon her not by the fault of her Emperorshyperlink who are both most religious men, but by the crime of a half-barbarian traitorhyperlink who with our money has armed our foes against us.hyperlink Of old the Roman Empire was branded with eternal shame because after ravaging the country and routing the Romans at the Allia, Brennus with his Gauls entered, Rome itself.hyperlink Nor could this ancient stain be wiped out until Gaul, the birth-place of the Gauls, and Gaulish Greece,hyperlink wherein they had settled after triumphing over East and West, were subjugated to her sway. Even Hannibalhyperlink who swept like a devastating storm from Spain into Italy, although he came within sight of the city, did not dare to lay siege to it. Even Pyrrhushyperlink was so completely bound by the spell of the Roman name that destroying everything that came in his way, he yet withdrew from its vicinity and, victor though he was, did not presume to gaze upon what he had learned to be a city of kings. Yet in return for such insults-not to say such haughty pride-as theirs which ended thus happily for Rome, onehyperlink banished from all the world found death at last by poison in Bithynia; while the otherhyperlink returning to his native land was slain in his own dominions. The countries of both became tributary to the Roman people. But now, even if complete success attends our arms, we can wrest nothing from our vanquished foes but what we have already lost to them. The poet Lucan describing the power of the city in a glowing passage says:hyperlink
If Rome be weak, where shall we look for strength?
we may vary his words and say:
If Rome be lost, where shall we look for help
or quote the language of Virgil:
Had I a hundred tongues and throat of bronze
The woes of captives I could not relate
Or ev'n recount the names of all the slain.hyperlink Even what I have said is fraught with danger both to me who say it and to all who hear it; for we are no longer free even to lament our fate. and are unwilling, nay, I may even say, afraid to weep for our sufferings.
Dearest daughter in Christ, answer me this question: will you marry amid such scenes as these? Tell me, what kind of husband will you take? One that will run or one that will fight? In either case you know what the result will be. Instead of the Fescennine song,hyperlink the hoarse blare of the terrible trumpet will deafen your ears and your very brideswomen may be turned into mourners. In what pleasures can you hope to revel now that you have lost the proceeds of all your possessions, now that you see your small retinue under close blockade and a prey to the inroads of pestilence and famine? But far be it from me to think so meanly of you or to harbour any suspicions of one who has dedicated her soul to the Lord. Though nominally addressed to you my words are really meant for others such as are idle, inquisitive and given to gossip. These wander from house to house and from one married lady to another,hyperlink their god is their belly and their glory is in their shame,hyperlink of the scriptures they know nothing except the texts which favour second marriages, but they love to quote the example of others to justify their own self-indulgence, and flatter themselves that they are no worse than their fellow-sinners. When you have confounded the shameless proposals of such women by explaining the true drift of the apostle's meaning; then to show you by what mode of life you can best preserve your widowhood, you may read with advantage what I have written. I mean my treatise on the preservation of virginity addressed to Eustochiumhyperlink and my two letters to Furiahyperlink and Salvina.hyperlink Of these two latter you may like to know that the first is daughter-in-law to Probus some time consul, and the second daughter to Gildo formerly governour of Africa. This tract on monogamy I shall call by your name.
Footnotes
3267 Gen. ii. 21, Gen. ii. 22.
3268 Gen. ii. 24, LXX.
3269 Eph. v. 31, Eph. v. 32.
3270 Gen. iii. 20.
3271 Gen. iv. 19.
3272 Rev. ii. 9.
3273 Cant. vi. 8, Cant. vi. 9.
3274 2 Joh. i. In Latin `choice
0' and `elect
0' are one word.
3275 1 Pet. iii. 20, 1 Pet. iii. 21.
3276 Gen. vii. 13.
3277 Gen. vii. 2.
3278 Gen. viii. 20.
3279 Gen. xxxviii. 12-18.
3280 Hos. i. 2, Hos. i. 3.
3281 Cf Jer. v. 8.
3282 Luke xvii. 27-29.
3283 Gen. i. 28, Gen. ix. 7.
3284 1 Cor. x. ii, R.V.
3285 1 Cor. vii. 29.
3286 Matt. iii. 10.
3287 Eccles. iii. 5.
3288 Jer. xvi. 2.
3289 Cf. Ezek. xxiv. 16-18, Ezek. xxiv. 27.
3290 Ps. cxxviii. 3, Ps. cxxviii. 6.
3291 1 Cor. vi. 17.
3292 Ps. lxiii. 8.
3293 Matt. v. 38, Matt. v. 39.
3294 Ps. xlv. 3.
3295 Matt. xxvi. 52.
3296 A gnostic of the second century who rejected the whole of the old testament as incompatible with the new.
3297 Gal. iv. 22-26.
3298 Gen. xxix. 17, Gen. xxix. 18.
3299 Gen. xxv. 22, Gen. xxv. 23.
3300 Gen. xxxviii. 27-30.
3301 Eph. ii. 14.
3302 Gomer the wife of Hosea.
3303 Hos. ii. 7, Hos. iii. 3.
3304 Rom. xi. 25, Rom. xi. 26.
3305 Virg. A. iv. 32-34: 548, 552.
3306 From Tert. de Exh. Cast. xii.
3307 Matt. vi. 33.
3308 Matt. vi. 26, Matt. vi. 28.
3309 1 Tim. v. 11.
3310 1 Tim. v. 2. Jerome substitutes `love
0' for `rebuke.
0'
3311 Rom. xii. 17, cf. Letter cxvii.
3312 Rom. ii. 24.
3313 1 Cor. ix. 5.
3314 1 Cor. x. 29.
3315 1 Cor. ix. 14.
3316 1 Cor. iv. 12: 1 Thess. ii. 9: 2 Cor. xii. 14.
3317 1 Cor. viii. 13.
3318 Matt. vi. 25, Matt. vi. 27, Matt. vi. 34.
3319 Gen. xxviii. 11-13.
3320 Cf. Letters cviii. and cxviii.
3321 Gen. xxxii. 7, Gen. xxxii. 10.
3322 Matt. x. 9, Matt. x. 10.
3323 2 Cor. vi. 10.
3324 Acts iii. 6.
3325 1 K. xix. 11-13, cf. Exod. xxxiii. 21-23.
3326 Cf. Juv. i. 88.
3327 Jerome follows Tertullian, Irenaeus, and the majority of the fathers in supposing the apostle to allude to the Roman Empire. See Letter CXXI. Comm. in Hierem. xxv. 26, Comm. in Dan. vii, 7, 8.
3328 2 Thess. ii. 7, 2 Thess. ii. 8.
3329 Matt. xxiv. 19.
3330 Ps. lxxxiii. 8.
3331 Now Maintz.
3332 Now Worms.
3333 Tribes whose memories linger in the names Amiens and Arras.
3334 See note on Letter LIV.
3335 Arcadius and Honorius.
3336 Stilicho who induced the senate to grant a subsidy to the Gothic King Alaric. See Gibbon, C. xxx.
3337 This, one of Jerome's few criticisms on the public policy of his day, shows him to have taken a narrow and inadequate view of the issues involved.
3338 In the year 390 §.
3339 i.e. Galatia.
3340 The great Carthaginian general in the second Punic war.
3341 King of Epirus who invaded Italy in the years 280, 279, 276, 275 b.c.
3342 Hannibal.
3343 Pyrrhus.
3344 Lucan, Phars. v. 274.
3345 Virg. A. vi. 625-627.
3346 See note on Letter CXXX.
3347 1 Tim. v. 13.
3348 Phil. iii. 19.
3349 Letter XXII.
3350 Letter LIV.
3351 Letter LXXIX.