Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. VI:
The Letters of St. Jerome.: Letter LXIX

Letter LXIX. To Oceanus.

Oceanus, a Roman nobleman zealous for the faith, had asked Jerome to back him in a protest against Carterius a Spanish bishop who contrary to the apostolic rule that a bishop is to be “the husband of one wife” had married a second time. Jerome refuses to take the line suggested on the ground that Carterius’s first marriage having preceded his baptism cannot be taken into account. He therefore advises Oceanus to let the matter drop. The date of the letter is 397 a.d.

1. I never supposed, son Oceanus, that the clemency of the Emperor would be assailed by criminals, or that persons just released from prison would after their own experience of its filth and fetters complain of relaxations allowed to others. In the gospel he who envies another’s salvation is thus addressed: “Friend, is thine eye evil because I am good?” 2010 “God hath concluded them all in sin 2011 that he might have mercy upon all.” 2012 “When sin abounded grace did much more abound.” 2013 The first born of Egypt are slain and not even a beast belonging to Israel is left behind in Egypt. 2014 The heresy of the Cainites rises before me and the once slain viper lifts up its shattered head, destroying not partially as most often hitherto but altogether the mystery of Christ. 2015 This p. 142 heresy declares that there are some sins which Christ cannot cleanse with His blood, and that the scars left by old transgressions on the body and the soul are sometimes so deep that they cannot be effaced by the remedy which He supplies. What else is this but to say that Christ has died in vain? He has indeed died in vain if there are any whom He cannot make alive. When John the Baptist points to Christ and says: “Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sins 2016 of the world” 2017 he utters a falsehood if after all there are persons living whose sins Christ has not taken away. For either it must be shewn that they are not of the world whom the grace of Christ thus ignores: or, if it be admitted that they are of the world, we have to choose between the horns of a dilemma. Either they have been delivered from their sins, in which case the power of Christ to save all men is proved; or they remain undelivered and as it were still under the charge of misdoing, in which case Christ is proved to be powerless. But far be it from us to believe of the Almighty that He is powerless in aught. For “what things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” 2018 To ascribe weakness to the Son is to ascribe it to the Father also. The shepherd carries the whole sheep and not only this or that part of it: all the epistles of the apostle 2019 speak continually of the grace of Christ. And, lest a single announcement of this grace might seem a little thing, Peter says: “Grace unto you and peace be multiplied.” 2020 The Scripture promises abundance; yet we affirm scarcity.

2. To what does all this tend, you ask. I reply; you remember the question that you proposed. It was this. A Spanish bishop named Carterius, old in years and in the priesthood has married two wives, one before he was baptized, and, she having died, another since he has passed through the laver; and you are of opinion that he has violated the precept of the apostle, who in his list of episcopal qualifications commands that a bishop shall be “the husband of one wife.” 2021 I am surprised that you have pilloried an individual when the whole world is filled with persons ordained in similar circumstances; I do not mean presbyters or clergy of lower rank, but speak only of bishops of whom if I were to enumerate them all one by one I should gather a sufficient number to surpass the crowd which attended the synod of Ariminum. 2022 Still it does not become me to defend one by incriminating many; nor if reason condemns a sin, to make the number of those who commit it an excuse for it. At Rome an eloquent pleader caught me, as the phrase goes, between the horns of a dilemma: whichever way I turned I was held fast. Is it sinful, said he, to marry a wife, or is it not sinful? I in my simplicity, not being wary enough to avoid the snare laid for me, replied that it was not sinful. Then he propounded another question: Is it good deeds which are done away with in baptism or is it evil? Here again my simplicity induced me to say that it was sins which were forgiven. At this point, just as I began to fancy myself secure, the horns of the dilemma commenced to close in on me from this side and from that and their points hidden before began to shew themselves. If, said he, to marry a wife is not sinful, and if baptism forgives sins, all that is not done away with is held over. On the instant a dark mist rose before my eyes as though I had been struck by a strong boxer. Yet recalling the sophism attributed to Chrysippus: 2023 “Whether you lie or whether you speak the truth, in either case you lie,” I came to myself again and turned upon my opponent with a dilemma of my own. Pray tell me, I said, does baptism make a new man or does it not? He grudgingly admitted that it did. I pursued my advantage by saying, Does it make him wholly new or only partially so? He replied, Wholly. Then I asked, Is there nothing then of the old man held over in baptism? He assented. Hereupon I propounded the argument; If baptism makes a man new and creates a wholly new being, and if there is nothing of the old man held over in the new, that which once was in the old cannot be imputed to the new. At first my thorny friend held his tongue; afterwards however, making Piso’s mistake, 2024 though he had nothing to say he could not remain silent. Sweat stood upon his brow, his cheeks turned pale, his lips trembled, his tongue clove to his mouth, his throat became dry; and fear (not age) made him cower. At last he broke out in these words, Have you not read how the apostle permits none to be ordained priest save the husband of one wife, and that what he lays stress upon is the fact of the marriage and not the time at which it is contracted? Now as the fellow had challenged me with syllogisms, and as I saw that he was feeling his way towards some intricate and awkward questions, I proceeded to turn his own weapons against him. I said therefore, Whom did the apostle select for the episcopate, baptized persons or catechumens? He refused p. 143 to reply. I however made a fresh onslaught repeating my question a second time and a third. You would have taken him for Niobe changed to stone by excessive weeping. I turned to the audience and said: It is all the same to me, good people, whether I bind my opponent awake or sleeping; but it is easier to fetter a man who offers no resistance. If those whom the apostle admits into the ranks of the clergy are not catechumens but the faithful, and if he who is ordained bishop is always one of the faithful, being one of the faithful he cannot have the faults of a catechumen imputed to him. Such were the darts I hurled at my paralysed opponent. Such the quivering spears I cast at him. At last his mouth opened and he vomited forth the contents of his mind. Certainly, he blurted out, that is the doctrine of the apostle Paul.

3. Accordingly I bring out two epistles of the apostle, the first to Timothy, and the second to Titus. In the first is the following passage: “If a man desire the office of a bishop he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker…but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Not a novice lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.” 2025 While immediately at the commencement of the epistle to Titus the following behests are laid down: “For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.” 2026 In both epistles commandment is given that only monogamists should be chosen for the clerical office whether as bishops or as presbyters. 2027 Indeed with the ancients these names were synonymous, one alluding to the office, the other to the age of the clergy. No one at any rate can doubt that the apostle is speaking only of those who have been baptized. If therefore it in no wise prejudices the case of one who is to be ordained bishop that before his baptism he has not possessed all the requisite qualifications (for it is asked what he is and not what he has been), why should a previous marriage—the one thing which is in itself not sinful—prove a hindrance to his ordination? You argue that as his marriage was not a sin it was not done away with at his baptism. This is news to me indeed, that what in itself was not a sin is to be reckoned as such. All fornication and contamination with open vice, impiety towards God, parricide and incest, the change of the natural use of the sexes into that which is against nature 2028 and all extraordinary lusts are washed away in the fountain of Christ. Can it be possible that the stains of marriage are indelible, and that harlotry is judged more leniently than honourable wedlock? I do not, Carterius might say, hold you to blame for the hosts of mistresses and the troops of favourites 2029 that you have kept; I do not charge you with your bloodshedding and sow-like wallowings in the mire of uncleanness: yet you are ready to drag from her grave for my confusion my poor wife, who has been dead long years, and whom I married that I might be kept from those sins into which you have fallen. Tell this to the heathen who form the church’s harvest with which she stores her granaries; tell this to the catechumens who seek admission to the number of the faithful; tell them, I say, not to contract marriages before their baptism, not to enter upon honourable wedlock, but like the Scots and the Atacotti 2030 and the people of Plato’s republic 2031 to have community of wives and no discrimination of children, nay more, to beware of any semblance even of matrimony; lest, after they have come to believe in Christ, He shall tell them that those whom they have had have not been concubines or mistresses but wedded wives.

4. Let every man examine his own conscience and let him deplore the violence he has done to it at every period of his life; and then when he has brought himself to deliver a true judgment on his own former misdeeds, let him give ear to the chiding of Jesus: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” 2032 Truly like the scribes and pharisees we strain out the gnat and swallow the camel, we pay tithe of mint and anise, and we omit the just judgment which God requires. 2033 What parallel can be drawn between a wife p. 144 and a prostitute? Is it fair to make a marriage now dissolved by death a ground of accusation, while dissolute living wins for itself a garland of praise? He, had his former wife lived, would not have married another; but as for you, how can you defend the bestial unions you indiscriminately make? Perhaps indeed you will say that you feared to contract marriage lest by so doing you might disqualify yourself for ordination. He took a wife that he might have children by her; you by taking a harlot have lost the hope of children. He withdrew into the privacy of his own chamber when he sought to obey nature and to win God’s blessing: “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.” 2034 You on the contrary outraged public decency in the hot eagerness of your lust. He covered a lawful indulgence beneath a veil of modesty; you pursued an unlawful one shamelessly before the eyes of all. For him it is written “Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled,” while to you the words are read, “but whoremongers and adulterers God wilt judge,” 2035 and “if any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” 2036 All iniquities, we are told, are forgiven us at our baptism, and when once we have received God’s mercy we need not afterwards dread from Him the severity of a judge. The apostle says:—“And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” 2037 All sins then are forgiven; it is an honest and faithful saying. But I ask you, how comes it that, while your uncleanness is washed away, my cleanness is made unclean? You reply, “No, it is not made unclean, it remains just what it was. Had it been uncleanness, it would have been washed away like mine.” I want to know what you mean by this shuffling. Your remarks seem to have no more point in them than the round end of a pestle. Is a thing sin because it is not sin? or is a thing unclean because it is not unclean? The Lord, you say, has not forgiven because He had nothing to forgive; yet because He has not forgiven, that which has not been forgiven still remains.

5. What the true effect of baptism is, and what is the real grace conveyed by water hallowed in Christ, I will presently tell you; meantime I will deal with this argument as it deserves. ‘An ill knot,’ says the common proverb, ‘requires but an ill wedge to split it.’ The text quoted by the objector, “a bishop must be the husband of one wife,” admits of quite another explanation. The apostle came of the Jews and the primitive Christian church was gathered out of the remnants of Israel. Paul knew that the Law allowed men to have children by several wives, 2038 and was aware that the example of the patriarchs had made polygamy familiar to the people. Even the very priests might at their own discretion enjoy the same license. 2039 He gave commandment therefore that the priests of the church should not claim this liberty, that they should not take two wives or three together, but that they should each have but one wife at one time. Perhaps you may say that this explanation which I have given is disputed; in that case listen to another. You must not have a monopoly of bending the Law to suit your will instead of bending your will to suit the Law. Some by a strained interpretation say that wives are in this passage to be taken for churches and husbands for their bishops. A decree was made by the fathers assembled at the council of Nicæa 2040 that no bishop should be translated from one church to another, lest scorning the society of a poor yet virgin see he should seek the embraces of a wealthy and adulterous one. For as the word λογισμόι, that is, “disputings,” refers to the fault and misdoing of sons in the faith, 2041 and as the precept concerning the management of a house refers to the right direction of body and of soul, 2042 so by the wives of the bishops we are to understand their churches. Concerning whom it is written in Isaiah, “Make haste ye women and come from the show, for it is a people of no understanding.” 2043 And again “Rise up, ye women that are wealthy, 2044 and hear my voice.” 2045 And in the Book of Proverbs, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.” 2046 In the same book too it is written, “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.” 2047 Nor does this, say they, derogate from the dignity of the episcopate; for the same figure is used in relation to God. Jeremiah writes: “As a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel.” 2048 And the apostle employs the same comparison: “I have espoused you,” he says to his converts, “to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” 2049 The word woman is in the Greek ambiguous and should in all these places be understood as meaning wife. You will say that this interpretation is harsh and does violence to the sense. In that case give back to the scripture its simple p. 145 meaning and save me from the necessity of fighting you on your own ground. 2050 I will ask you the following question, Can a man who before his baptism has kept a concubine, and after her death has received baptism and has taken a wife, become a clergyman or not? You will answer me that he can, because his first partner was a concubine and not a wife. What the apostle condemns then, it would seem, is not mere sexual intercourse but marriage contracts and conjugal rights. Many persons, we see, because of narrow circumstances refuse to take upon them the burthen of matrimony. Instead of taking wives they live with their maid-servants and bring up as their own the children which these bear to them. Thus, if through the bounty of the Emperor they gain for their mistresses the right of wearing a matron’s robes, 2051 they will at once come beneath the yoke of the apostle and sorely against their will will have to receive their partners as their wedded wives. But, if their poverty prevents them from obtaining an imperial rescript such as I have mentioned, the decrees of the Church will vary with the laws of Rome. Be careful therefore not to interpret the words “the husband of one wife,” that is, of one woman, as approving indiscriminate intercourse and condemning only contracts of marriage.

I bring forward all these explanations not for the purpose of resisting the true and simple sense of the words in question but to shew you that you must take the holy scriptures as they are written, and that you must not empty of its efficacy the baptismal rite ordained by the Saviour, or render vain the whole mystery of the cross.

6. Let me now fulfil the promise I made a little while ago and with all the skill of a rhetorician sing the praises of water and of baptism. In the beginning the earth was without form and void, there was no dazzling sun or pale moon, there were no glittering stars. There was nothing but matter inorganic and invisible, and even this was lost in abysmal depths and shrouded in a distorting gloom. The Spirit of God above moved, as a charioteer, over the face of the waters, 2052 and produced from them the infant world, a type of the Christian child that is drawn from the laver of baptism. A firmament is constructed between heaven and earth, and to this is allotted the name heaven,—in the Hebrew Shamayim or ‘what comes out of the waters,’— 2053 and the waters which are above the heavens are parted from the others to the praise of God. Wherefore also in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel there is seen above the cherubim a crystal stretched forth, 2054 that is, the compressed and denser waters. The first living beings come out of the waters; and believers soar out of the laver with wings to heaven. Man is formed out of clay 2055 and God holds the mystic waters in the hollow of his hand. 2056 In Eden a garden 2057 is planted, and a fountain in the midst of it parts into four heads. 2058 This is the same fountain which Ezekiel later on describes as issuing out of the temple and flowing towards the rising of the sun, until it heals the bitter waters and quickens those that are dead. 2059 When the world falls into sin nothing but a flood of waters can cleanse it again. But as soon as the foul bird of wickedness is driven away, the dove of the Holy Spirit comes to Noah 2060 as it came afterwards to Christ in the Jordan, 2061 and, carrying in its beak a branch betokening restoration and light, brings tidings of peace to the whole world. Pharaoh and his host, loth to allow God’s people to leave Egypt, are overwhelmed in the Red Sea figuring thereby our baptism. His destruction is thus described in the book of Psalms: “Thou didst endow the sea with virtue through thy power: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters: thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces.” 2062 For this reason adders and scorpions haunt dry places 2063 and whenever they come near water behave as if rabid or insane. 2064 As wood sweetens Marah so that seventy palm-trees are watered by its streams, so the cross makes the waters of the law lifegiving to the seventy who are Christ’s apostles. 2065 It is Abraham and Isaac who dig wells, the Philistines who try to prevent them. 2066 Beersheba too, the city of the oath, 2067 and [Gihon], the scene of Solomon’s coronation, 2068 derive their names from springs. It is beside a well that Eliezer finds Rebekah. 2069 Rachel too is a drawer of water and wins a kiss thereby 2070 from the supplanter 2071 Jacob. When the daughters of the priests of Midian are in a strait to reach the well, Moses opens a way for them and delivers them from outrage. 2072 The Lord’s forerunner at Salem (a name which means peace or perfection) makes ready the people for Christ with spring-water. 2073 The Saviour Himself does not preach the kingdom of heaven until by His baptismal immersion He has cleansed the Jordan. 2074 p. 146 Water is the matter of His first miracle 2075 and it is from a well that the Samaritan woman is bidden to slake her thirst. 2076 To Nicodemus He secretly says:—“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” 2077 As His earthly course began with water, so it ended with it. His side is pierced by the spear, and blood and water flow forth, twin emblems of baptism and of martyrdom. 2078 After His resurrection also, when sending His apostles to the Gentiles, He commands them to baptize these in the mystery of the Trinity. 2079 The Jewish people repenting of their misdoing are sent forthwith by Peter to be baptized. 2080 Before Sion travails she brings forth children, and a nation is born at once. 2081 Paul the persecutor of the church, that ravening wolf out of Benjamin, 2082 bows his head before Ananias one of Christ’s sheep, and only recovers his sight when he applies the remedy of baptism. 2083 By the reading of the prophet the eunuch of Candace the queen of Ethiopia is made ready for the baptism of Christ. 2084 Though it is against nature the Ethiopian does change his skin and the leopard his spots. 2085 Those who have received only John’s baptism and have no knowledge of the Holy Spirit are baptized again, lest any should suppose that water unsanctified thereby could suffice for the salvation of either Jew or Gentile. 2086 “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters…The Lord is upon many waters…the Lord maketh the flood to inhabit it.” 2087 His “teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn which came up from the washing; whereof everyone bear twins, and none is barren among them.” 2088 If none is barren among them, all of them must have udders filled with milk and be able to say with the apostle: “Ye are my little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you;” 2089 and “I have fed you with milk and not with meat.” 2090 And it is to the grace of baptism that the prophecy of Micah refers: “He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us: he will subdue our iniquities, and will cast all our sins 2091 into the depths of the sea.” 2092

7. How then can you say that all sins are drowned in the baptismal laver if a man’s wife is still to swim on the surface as evidence against him? The psalmist says:—“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” 2093 It would seem that we must add something to this song and say “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not a wife.” Let us hear also the declaration which Ezekiel the so called “son of man” 2094 makes concerning the virtue of him who is to be the true son of man, the Christian: “I will take you,” he says, “from among the heathen…then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness…a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit.” 2095 “From all your filthiness” he says, “will I cleanse you.” If all is taken away nothing can be left. If filthiness is cleansed, how much more is cleanness kept from defilement. “A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit.” Yes, for “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision but a new nature.” 2096 Wherefore the song also which we sing is a new song, 2097 and putting off the old man 2098 we walk not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit. 2099 This is the new stone wherein the new name is written, “which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” 2100 “Know ye not,” says the apostle, “that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” 2101 Do we read so often of newness and of making new and yet can no renewing efface the stain which the word wife brings with it? We are buried with Christ by baptism and we have risen again by faith in the working of God who hath called Him from the dead. And “when we were dead in our sins and in the uncircumcision of our flesh, God hath quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way nailing it to His cross.” 2102 Can it be that when our whole being is dead with Christ and when all the sins noted down in the old “handwriting” are blotted out, the one word “wife” alone lives on? Time would fail me were I to try to lay before you in order all the passages in the Holy Scriptures which relate to the efficacy of baptism or to explain the mysterious doctrine of that second birth which though it is our second is yet our first in Christ.

8. Before I make an end of dictating (for I p. 147 perceive that I have already exceeded the just limits of a letter) I wish to give a brief explanation of the previous verses of the epistle in which the apostle describes the life of him that is to be made a bishop. We shall thus recognize him as Doctor of the Nations 2103 not only for his praise of monogamy but also for all his precepts. At the same time I beg that no one will suppose that in what I write my design is to blacken the priests of the present day. My one object is to promote the interest of the church. Just as orators and philosophers in giving their notions of the perfect orator and the perfect philosopher do not detract from Demosthenes and Plato but merely set forth abstract ideals; so, when I describe a bishop and explain the qualifications laid down for the episcopate, I am but supplying a mirror for priests. Every man’s conscience will tell him that it rests with himself what image he will see reflected there, whether one that will grieve him by its deformity or one that will gladden him by its beauty. I turn now to the passage in question. 2104 “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.” Work, you see, not rank; toil not pleasure; work that he may increase in lowliness, not grow proud by reason of elevation. “A bishop then must be blameless.” The same thing that he says to Titus, “if any be blameless.” 2105 All the virtues are comprehended in this one word; thus he seems to require an impossible perfection. For if every sin, even every idle word, is deserving of blame, who is there in this world that is sinless and blameless? Still he who is chosen to be shepherd of the church must be one compared with whom other men are rightly regarded as but a flock of sheep. Rhetoricians define an orator as a good man able to speak. To be worthy of so high an honour he must be blameless in life and lip. For a teacher loses all his influence whose words are rendered null by his deeds. “The husband of one wife.” Concerning this requirement I have spoken above. I will now only warn you that if monogamy is insisted on before baptism the other conditions laid down must be insisted on before baptism too. For it is impossible to regard the remaining obligations as binding only on the baptized and this alone as binding also on the unbaptized. “Vigilant (or “temperate” for νηφαλιος means both), wise, 2106 of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach.” The priests who minister in God’s temple are forbidden to drink wine and strong drink, 2107 to keep their wits from being stupefied with drunkenness and to enable their understanding to do its duty in God’s service. By the word ‘wise’ those are excluded who plead simplicity as an excuse for a priest’s folly. For if the brain be not sound, all the members will be amiss. The phrase “of good behaviour” is an extension of the previous epithet “blameless.” One who has no faults is called “blameless;” one who is rich in virtues is said to be “of good behaviour.” Or the words may be differently explained in accord with Tully’s maxim, 2108 ‘the main thing is that what you do you should do gracefully.’ For some persons are so ignorant of their own measure 2109 and so stupid and foolish that they make themselves laughing stocks to those who see them because of their gesture or gait or dress or conversation. Fancying that they knew what is and what is not good taste they deck themselves out with finery and bodily adornments and give banquets which profess to be elegant: but all such attempts at dress and display are nastier than a beggar’s rags. As regards the obligation of priests to be teachers we bare have the precepts of the old Law 2110 and the fuller instructions given on the subject to Titus. 2111 For an innocent and unobtrusive conversation does as much harm by its silence as it does good by its example. If the ravening wolves are to be frightened away it must be by the barking of dogs and by the staff of the shepherd. “Not given to wine, no striker.” With the virtues they are to aim at he contrasts the vices they are to avoid.

9. We have learned what we ought to be: let us now learn what priests ought not to be. Indulgence in wine is the fault of diners out and revellers. When the body is heated with drink it soon boils over with lust. Wine drinking means self-indulgence, self-indulgence means sensual gratification, sensual gratification means a breach of chastity. He that lives in pleasure is dead while he lives, 2112 and he that drinks himself drunk is not only dead but buried. One hour’s debauch makes Noah uncover his nakedness which through sixty years of sobriety he had kept covered. 2113 Lot in a fit of intoxication unwittingly adds incest to incontinence, and wine overcomes the man whom Sodom failed to conquer. 2114 A bishop that is a striker is condemned by Him who gave His back to the smiters, 2115 and when He was reviled reviled not again. 2116 “But moderate” 2117 one good thing is set over against two evil things. Drunkenness and passion are to be held in check by moderation. “Not a brawler, not covetous.” Nothing is more overweening than the assurance of the ignorant who fancy that incessant chatter will carry p. 148 conviction with it and are always ready for a dispute that they may thunder with turgid eloquence against the flock committed to their charge. That a priest must avoid covetousness even Samuel teaches when he proves before all the people that he has taken nothing from any man. 2118 And the same lesson is taught by the poverty of the apostles who used to receive sustenance and refreshment from their brethren and to boast that they neither had nor wished to have anything besides food and raiment. 2119 What the epistle to Timothy calls covetousness, that to Titus openly censures as the desire for filthy lucre. 2120 “One that ruleth well his own house.” Not by increasing riches, not by providing regal banquets, not by having a pile of finely-wrought plates, not by slowly steaming pheasants so that the heat may reach the bones without melting the flesh upon them; no, but by first requiring of his own household the conduct which he has to inculcate in others. “Having his children in subjection with all gravity.” They must not, that is, follow the example of the sons of Eli who lay with the women in the vestibule of the Temple and, supposing religion to consist in plunder, diverted to the gratification of their own appetites all the best parts of the victims. 2121 “Not a novice lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” I cannot sufficiently express my amazement at the great blindness which makes men discuss such questions as that of marriage before baptism and causes them to charge people with a transaction which is dead in baptism, nay even quickened into a new life with Christ, while no one regards a commandment so clear and unmistakable as this about bishops not being novices. One who was yesterday a catechumen is to-day a bishop 2122 ; one who was yesterday in the amphitheatre is to-day in the church; one who spent the evening in the circus stands in the morning at the altar: one who a little while ago was a patron of actors is now a dedicator of virgins. Was the apostle ignorant of our shifts and subterfuges? did he know nothing of our foolish arguments? He not only says that a bishop must be the husband of one wife, but he has given commandment that he must be blameless, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach, moderate, 2123 not given to wine, no striker, not a brawler, not covetous, not a novice. Yet to all these requirements we shut our eyes and notice nothing but the wives of the aspirants. Who cannot give instances to shew the need of the warning: “lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil?” A priest 2124 who is made such in a moment knows nothing of the lowliness and meekness which mark the meanest of the faithful, he knows nothing of Christian courtesy, he is not wise enough to think little of himself. He passes from one dignity to another, yet he has not fasted, he has not wept, he has not taken himself to task for his life, he has not striven by constant meditation to amend it, he has not given his substance to the poor. Yet he is moved from one see 2125 to another, he passes, that is, from pride to pride. There can be no doubt that arrogance is what the Apostle means when he speaks of the condemnation and downfall of the devil. And all men fall into this who are in a moment made masters, actually before they are disciples. “Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without.” The last requirement is like the first. One who is really “blameless” obtains the unanimous approval not only of his own household but of outsiders as well. By aliens and persons outside the church we are to understand Jews, heretics and Gentiles. A Christian bishop then must be such that they who cavil at his religion may not venture to cavil at his life. At present however we see but too many bishops who are willing, like the charioteers in the horse races, to bid money for the popular applause; while there are some so universally hated that they can wring no money from their people, a feat which clowns accomplish by means of a few gestures.

10. Such are the conditions, son Oceanus, which the master-teachers of the church ought with anxiety and fear to require of others and to observe themselves. Such too are the canons which they should follow in the choice of persons for the priesthood; for they must not interpret the law of Christ to suit private animosities and feuds or to gratify ill-feeling which is sure to recoil on the man who cherishes it. Consider how unimpeachable is the character of Carterius in whose life his ill-wishers can find nothing to censure except a marriage contracted before baptism. “He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. If we commit no adultery yet if we kill, we are become transgressors of the law.” 2126 “Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” 2127 Accordingly when they cast in our teeth a marriage entered into before baptism, we must require of them compliance with all the precepts which are given to the baptized. For they pass over much that is not allowable while they censure much that is allowed.

Footnotes

Matt. xx. 15.

A.V. ‘unbelief.’

Rom. xi. 32.

Rom. v. 20.

Exod. 12:29, 30, 38.

The Cainites appear to have denied the efficacy of the atonement.

A.V. ‘sin.’

Joh. i. 29.

Joh. v. 19.

i.e. Paul.

1 Pet. i. 2.

1 Tim. iii. 2.

This synod held in 359 a.d. was attended by about 450 bishops. It put forth an Arian formula which caused general consternation. “The whole world,” says Jerome, “groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian.”

See note on Letter LXI. 3.

Cf. Cic. In Pis. 1.

1 Tim. iii. 1-7.

Tit. i. 5-9.

Rendered ‘elders’ in A.V.

Cf. Rom. 1:26, 27.

Exoleti.

A Scottish tribe, cannibals according to Jerome (Against Jov. ii. 7.)

Bk. V. 457.

Matt. vii. 5.

Matt. 23:23, 24, R.V.

Gen. i. 28.

Heb. xiii. 4.

1 Cor. iii. 17, R.V.

1 Cor. vi. 11.

Ex. xxi. 10.

Lev. 21:7, 13.

Canon xv.

Cf. Phil. 2:14, 15.

1 Tim. iii. 4.

Isa. xxvii. 11, LXX. A.V. follows the Hebrew.

A.V. that are at ease.

Isa. xxxii. 9.

Prov. 31:10, 11.

Prov. xiv. 1.

Jer. iii. 20.

2 Cor. xi. 2.

i.e. that of strained interpretations.

V. Dict. Ant. s. v. stola and cf. Cic. Phil. 2:18, 44.

Gen. i. 2.

It is hardly necessary to remark that this derivation is purely fanciful and has no foundation in fact.

Ezek. i. 22.

Gen. ii. 7.

Query a reference to Isa. xl. 12: the Latin is obscure.

Paradisus.

Gen. 2:8, 10.

Ezek. 47:1, 8.

Gen. 8:8, 11.

Matt. iii. 16.

Ps. 74:13, 14 LXX.

Deut. viii. 15.

ὑδροφόβους et lymphaticos faciunt.

Exod. 15:23, Luke 10:0, Luke 1:0.

Gen. 26:15, 18.

Gen. xxi. 31.

1 Kings 1:38, 2 Chr. 32:30.

Gen. 24:15, 16.

Gen. 29:10, 11.

Gen. xxvii. 36.

Exod. 2:16, 17.

Joh. iii. 23.

Matt. 3:13, 17.

The turning of the water into wine at Cana (John 2:1, 11).

John 4:13, 14.

Joh. iii. 5.

Joh. xix. 34: Jerome here follows Tertullian and Cyril of Jerusalem.

Matt. xxviii. 19.

Acts ii. 38.

Isa. 66:7, 8.

Gen. xlix. 27.

Acts 9:17, 18. Comp. Letter LX. 8.

Acts viii. 27-38.

Jer. xiii. 23.

Acts xix. 1-7.

Ps. 29:3, 10. A.V. ‘the Lord sitteth upon the flood.’

Song of Sol. 4.2.

Gal. iv. 19.

1 Cor. iii. 2.

A.V. “thou wilt cast all their sins.”

Mic. vii. 19.

Ps. xxxii. 1-2.

Ezek. ii. 1.

Ezek. xxxvi. 24-26. A.V. punctuates differently.

Gal. vi. 15, ‘nature’ for ‘creature,’ a slip of memory.

Rev. xiv. 3.

Eph. iv. 22.

Rom. vii. 6.

Rev. ii. 17.

Rom. 6:3, 4.

Col. 2:13, 14.

Doctor Gentium.

1 Tim. iii. 1-7.

Tit. i. 6.

A.V. ‘sober.’

Lev. x. 9.

Cic. de Or. i. 29.

Cf. 2 Cor. x. 14.

Cf. Deut. xvii. 9-11.

Tit. i. 9-14.

Cf. 1 Tim. v. 6.

Gen. 9:20, 21.

Gen. xix. 30-38.

Isa. l. 6.

1 Pet. ii. 23.

A.V. ‘patient.’

1 Sam. xii. 3-5.

Cf. 1 Tim. vi. 8.

Tit. i. 7.

1 Sam. 2:12, 22.

The case of Ambrose.

A.V. ‘patient.’

Sacerdos: as usual a bishop is meant.

Lit. ‘chair.’

Jas. ii. 11.

Jas. ii. 10.