Two books against Jovinian

The treatise “Two Books Against Jovinian” was written by Bl. Jerome of Stridon in Bethlehem in 393 at the request of Roman friends (Pammachia and others). Jovinian, who lived in the monastery for a long time, but then left it, around 390 began to spread false teaching, which said that: - virgins who devote themselves to serving God have no more merit than married women; - the devil has no power over people who have been baptized; - abstinence from food is completely unfounded; - all who receive Baptism with perfect faith will receive the same glory in the Kingdom of Heaven, regardless of individual differences. In addition, Jovinian taught that the Virgin Mary conceived Christ without a husband and was not married to Joseph after the birth of the Lord, but was not an Ever-Virgin, having lost her virginity in the process of childbearing. Blzh. Jerome, relying on the Holy Scriptures, refutes the teachings of this “Christian Epicurus.” In the 1st book of the treatise, Jovinian’s thesis about the equivalence of virginity and marriage is refuted. Blzh. Jerome writes that virginity was highly valued even in pagan society, especially among philosophers. He unreasonably denigrates marriage and calls it evil. All this is accompanied by expressions taken from pagan anti-feminist literature, which caused bewilderment and confusion even among the Roman friends of the blessed one. Jerome, to whom he had to justify himself in his letters. Book 2 contains the remaining theses. The treatise ends with a call to Roman Christians to be steadfast in the faith and not to succumb to calls to return to pagan luxury and pleasures. To characterize the Church, Saint Jerome turns to its symbols and images from the Holy Scriptures. As a pure and immaculate Bride, the Church entered into a spiritual marriage with Christ, from which the apostles and other Christians descended. In this treatise, Blessed. Jerome also recognizes that the church hierarchy has 3 degrees: bishop, presbyter and deacon, and assumes significant differences between them in rights and responsibilities. Objecting to the teachings of Jovinian, which presupposed the equality of church degrees and ministries, he says: “If you destroy the order of the tabernacle, church, church, if, as the people say, the same encoma determines the suitability for military service of all those on the right hand, then bishops are nothing, presbyters are in vain, deacons are unnecessary” (Book 2). *The title of the work in Latin is Adversus Iovinianum, lib. I-II. Book one * Book two Not so long ago, the holy brothers from the city of Rome sent me the comments of a certain Jovinian, with the request that I respond to their absurdities and curb the Christian Epicurus with evangelical and apostolic power. Having read them and decidedly not understanding them, I began to re-read them several times and analyze not only the words and thoughts, but almost every syllable, wanting to first know what he said and then approve or refute what was said. Indeed, the essay is characterized by such ignorance and its extremely obscene language is obscured by such irregularities that I could not understand either what he wants to say or the arguments with which he proves what he says. He is all pompousness, and all weakness: he climbs high everywhere, and, like an exhausted snake, breaks from the very effort. He is not satisfied with ours, that is, with ordinary human speech; he wants to speak more sublimely. The mountains give birth, a funny mouse is born. The foolish Orestes himself will swear, That this is the work of an unsound person. Moreover, he obscures everything so much and confuses everything with such insoluble knots that a well-known passage from the works of Plautus can be applied to him: No one will read them except the Sibyl. Because fortune telling is really needed. We read the frantic soothsayers of Apollo and the famous saying of Virgil: sound makes without meaning (Aeneid book 10). And Heraclitus, nicknamed σκοτεινὸν (obscure, abstruse, dark - Greek), philosophers, working in the sweat of their brow, barely understand. But what are they in comparison with our αἰνιγματισταὶ (riddler; from the Greek ανιγμα - riddle), whose books are much more difficult to understand than to refute? And a refutation will cost a lot of work. For who is able to prevail over one whose positions he does not know at all? And in order not to take the reader too far, the beginning of his second book will show what kind of eloquence he has and with what colors of words he adorns himself. Spewing up yesterday's drunkenness, he vomits like this: “I satisfy the requests, not in order to acquire a famous name, but in order to live free from vain glory. I appeal to the fields, new plantings, heaps of tenderness, plucked from the whirlpools of vices, attention fenced off by troops. We know the church, in faith, hope, love, unapproachable, invincible. There is nothing immature in it, everyone is understanding: no one can rush in quickly or skillfully deceive.” I ask: what kind of monstrous speech is this? What kind of absurdity is this description? Will you come to the conclusion that he is delirious with a fever, or that he, like a madman, should be bound with the chains of Hippocrates? No matter how many times I re-read it, I only stop where I don’t have the courage. Everything starts, everything connects with something else, you don’t know what fits with what; and excluding the evidence of the Scriptures, which he did not dare to distort with the slightest flower of his eloquence, his other speech is suitable for all matter, because it is unsuitable for any. What gave me some inkling of the thought was that he wants to teach about marriage in a way that degrades virginity. For when the lesser is compared with the greater, then the comparison with the lower is a humiliation for the higher. We do not degrade marriage, following the teachings of Marcion and Manichaeus, and we do not consider every union unclean, carried away by the error of Tatian, the head of the Encratites, who condemns and condemns not only marriage, but also the dishes that God created for consumption. We know that in a great house there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, and that on the foundation of Christ, which the architect Paul laid, some create gold, silver, precious stones, while others, on the contrary, create hay, firewood, and straw. We know that marriage is honorable and the bed is undefiled (Heb. 13:4), we read the first definition of God: grow and multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28); but we accept marriage in such a way that we prefer virginity, which is born from marriage. Is it really true that silver will not be silver if gold is more valuable than silver, or is it really a humiliation for the tree and the harvest if fruits and grains are preferred to roots and leaves, straw and ears? As fruit is from a tree, and grain is from straw, so is virginity from marriage. A fruit of one hundred, sixty and thirty times, although born from the same soil and from the same seeds, nevertheless varies greatly in quantity. Thirty times refers to marriage. For the very joining of fingers, as if embracing in tender caresses and concluding a union, represents husband and wife. And sixty times widows are treated as being in distress and sorrow. Therefore, this number is expressed by squeezing the thumb with the index finger, and the more difficult it is to refrain from the lures of once experienced pleasure, the greater the reward. Next, the hundredth number (I ask the reader to be especially attentive) is transferred from the left hand to the right and, expressed although with the same fingers that are used on the left to indicate married and widows, but not with the same hand, and representing a circle, expresses the crown of virginity 1. I expressed this more out of impatience than in accordance with the order of the refutation; because as soon as I left the pier and raised the sails with ropes, a sea of ​​questions and an uncontrollable desire to speak carried me out into the middle. Therefore, I will slow down my run and tighten the sails a little, and I will not spare the sword, even now striving to strike in defense of virginity. The more the throwing machine contracts, the harder it throws. Stopping does no harm when stopping makes victory more certain. I will briefly outline the enemy’s opinions, and from his dark books, as if from caves, I will pull snakes out and will not leave the poisonous head in the coils of the spotted body. Let that which is harmful be discovered, so that when discovered it will be crushed. - He says that virgins, widows and married women, once washed in Christ, if they do not differ from each other in other matters, have the same merit. - He strives to prove that those who are reborn with full faith through baptism cannot be defeated by the devil. - Thirdly, it teaches that there is no difference between abstaining from foods and accepting them with thanksgiving. – His fourth and final delusion is that everyone who has retained their baptism will receive the same reward in the kingdom of heaven. These are the slander of the ancient serpent: with such suggestions the dragon drove man out of paradise. For also preferring satiety to fasting, he promised that they would be immortal, as if they could never fall; and then, as he promised them divinity equal to God, he expelled them from paradise, so that naked and innocent, unsullied virgins, enjoying communion with the Lord, cast into the vale of tears, put on sewn leather vestments. But in order not to detain the reader too long, I will follow the trail of the division outlined and against each of its provisions I will primarily present the evidence of the Scriptures, so that when he complains about me, he will not babble that he is defeated more by eloquence than by truth. Having fulfilled this and constricted him with the cloud of this and that Testament, I will give evidence from secular literature, to which he himself resorts. I will show that even among philosophers and famous men, everyone usually preferred virtues to pleasures, i.e. Pythagoras, Plato and Aristides were preferred to Aristippa, Epicurus and Alcibiades. I ask you, virgins and abstinents of both sexes, as well as married and bigamous, to support my efforts with your prayers. Jovinian is the enemy of everyone in general. For the one who claims that the merits of everyone are the same insults both virginity, equating it with marriage, and marriage, recognizing it as permissible as the second and third marriage. But he is an enemy of both bigamous and trigamous, since he places those who were once fornicators and the most depraved, after repentance, in the same place as the bigamous and trigamous; unless bigamous and trigamous people cannot complain in this regard, that the same fornicator, who has repented in the kingdom of heaven, is equated even with virgins. So I will present in clearer terms and with some consistency his arguments and evidence regarding marriage, and in the same order I will analyze everything he said. Let the reader not be disdainful if he is forced to read the abominations he has vomited. He will be more willing to drink the antidote of Christ when he first experiences the poison of the devil. Listen patiently, virgins, listen, I beg you, to this most depraved vitiator, and like the singing of sirens and ravings, let them fall on deaf ears. Bear with yourself for a while; think that you, crucified with Christ, hear the blasphemy of the Pharisees. The first, he says, is the definition of God: for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:5). And so that we do not say that this is written in the Old Testament, he proves that the same thing is confirmed by the Lord in the Gospel: God joins together, let not man separate (Matthew 19:6), and then adds: grow and multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28), and in order reveals that Seth, Enosh, Cainan, Maleleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah - everyone had wives and, by God's definition, gave birth to children (as if the order of genealogy and the history of the spread of the human race could be told without spouses and children). “This is he,” he says, “Enoch,” who walked with the Lord and was taken up into heaven; This is the Noah who, while, of course, there were many virgins, due to old age, alone with his sons and wives was saved during the flood of the world. After the flood, as if at another beginning of the human race, pairs of husbands and wives are united again and the blessing of birth is completely restored: grow and multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 9:1, 8:17).” In addition, permission is given to eat meat: and everything that moves and is alive will be your food, just as I have given you all herbal potions (Gen. 9:3). He moves on to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of whom the first was a triple wife, the second a monogamist, the third had four wives - Leah, Rachel, Bala and Zilpah, and claims that Abraham, as a reward for his faith, received a blessing in the birth of a son. He says that Sarah, who was born as a woman (Gen. 18:11), in the image of the church, replaced the curse of barrenness with the blessing of birth; that Rebekah went as a prophetess to ask the Lord and heard from Him: two languages ​​and two nations are in your womb (Gen. 25:23); - that Jacob worked for his wife; and when Rachel thought that it was in the power of her husband to give children and said: Give me children, otherwise I will die (Gen. 30:1), he answered: food instead of God I am, who has deprived you of the fetus of the womb (v. 2): so, he says, he was convinced that the fruit of marriage is from the Lord, and not from the husband. He says that Joseph, a holy and most chaste man, and all the patriarchs had wives, whom God equally blesses through Moses. He also brings Judah and Tamar, and also brings Abnan, who was killed by the Lord because, not wanting his brother’s seed, he destroyed the consequences of marriage. Represents Moses and the leprosy of Miriam, who, insulting her brother because of his wife, was struck by God's punishment for this. He praises Sampson and extols the woman-loving Nazarite with amazing praises. He also tells about Deborah and Barak that they, without the advantages of virginity, defeated Sisera and Jabin and the iron chariots. Jael, the wife of Haber the Kinite, brings onto the stage and preaches about the hand armed with a stake. He says that between Jephthah the father and the virgin daughter who was slain to the Lord, there was no difference, and even more prefers the faith of the father to the one who was killed crying. He moves on to Samuel, another Nazarite of the Lord, who from childhood was raised in the tabernacle and clothed in εφουδ βαρ, which means linen garments (1 Samuel 2:18), and says that he gave birth to children and that priestly purity did not decrease from the embrace of a wife. He puts Boaz and his Ruth on the field and brings out Jesse and David from here. He also says about David himself that he, even at the risk of his life for two hundred circumcisions, sought copulation with the king’s daughter. What can we say about Solomon, whom, placing in the catalog of husbands, he considers to be the image of the Savior and thinks that it is written about him: God, thy judgment unto the king, give thy righteousness to the king's son, and: it shall be given to him of the gold of Arabia, and they shall pray for him (Ps. 72:1, 15)? And suddenly he goes to Elijah and Elisha and tells, as it were, a great secret, that the spirit of Elijah rested on Elisha, but why he said this, he is silent, perhaps because he thinks that both Elijah and Elisha had wives. He turns to Hezekiah and while he stops praising him, I am surprised that he forgot to say: from this day I will make children (Is. 38:19). He tells about Josiah, a most righteous man, during whose time the book of Deuteronomy was found in the church, how he was admonished by Huldah, the wife of Selim. Among the married he places Daniel and the three youths. And suddenly, moving on to the Gospel, he introduces Zechariah and Elizabeth, Peter and his mother-in-law, and the other apostles. And then he adds: “And if they decide to resort to a vain refutation and imagine that the young world demanded reproduction, let them listen to Paul, who says: I want to encroach upon young widows so that they may bear children (1 Tim. 5:14) and: marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled (Heb. 13:4), and also: a wife is tied to her husband for as long as her husband lives: But if her husband dies, he will commit violence for wrongdoing, but in the Lord (1 Cor. 7:39) and: Adam was not deceived, but the wife was deceived and became transgressed: but she will be saved for the sake of childbearing, if she continues in faith and love and in holiness with chastity (1 Tim. 2:14-15).” Of course, he omits here the apostolic saying: let those who have wives be like those who have not (1 Cor. 7:29) - so that you do not say that the apostle advises young widows to marry because some have gone astray after Satan, as if not one of the virgins falls and as if their fall is no greater. From this it is obvious that you follow the teachings of the Manichaeans, who forbid marriage and eating foods that God created for consumption and those who have a seared conscience. And after much, which is unnecessary to expound here, she falls, as it were, into the tone of the speaker and makes an appeal to the virgin, saying: “I do not offend you, virgin: because of real need, you chose chastity, wished to be holy in body and spirit: do not be proud: you are a member of the same church to which married women belong.” Perhaps I have expanded too much in the presentation of his opinions and tired the reader, but I considered it useful to oppose all his forces in the form of a correct formation and gather the entire enemy army with its troops and leaders, so that after the first victory the need for new battles would not arise. So I will not fight against everyone separately and will not be content with a detachment of a few: I must fight with the whole army, and the disorganized wedge-shaped detachments of enemies, fighting like bandits, must be brought down by a harmonious and organized army. In the first row I will place the Apostle Paul, and as the bravest leader, I will arm him with arrows, i.e. his thoughts. For the teacher of languages ​​and teacher of the church answers in great detail the Corinthians who asked him regarding this question. And what he determined, we must recognize as the law of Christ who spoke in him. At the same time, when we begin to examine each of the provisions separately, let the reader’s inner thought always turn to the apostle and, when examining very important issues, let him not rush forward, forgetting what preceded. By the way, the Corinthians asked through the letter: should those who believed in Christ be celibate and, for the sake of abstinence, leave the wives they had, or can those who believed before marriage get married? And if one of two pagan spouses believes in Christ, should the believer leave the unbeliever? And if you can get married, will the apostle command you to take only Christian women, or even pagan women? Let's see what Paul answered to this: And write about them, it is good for a man not to touch his wife. But for the sake of fornication let every man have his own wife, and every wife have her own husband. Let the husband render due love to his wife: and so does the wife to her husband. The wife does not own her body, but the husband does; in the same way, the husband does not own his body, but the wife does. Do not deprive yourself of each other, only by agreement for the time being, but remain in fasting and prayer, and gather together again, so that Satan does not tempt you with your intemperance. I say this out of condescension (juxta indulgentiam), and not by command. I want all people to be like me: but each one will receive his own gift from God, both in his own way and in his own way. I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them, if they remain as I did. If they don’t hold back, they will encroach: it is better to get married than to become limp (1 Cor. 7:1-9). Let's go back to the beginning of the testimony. Good, he says, a man should not touch his wife. If it is good not to touch your wife, then it is therefore not good to touch her, because the opposite of good is only bad. And if it is bad and he apologizes, then it is therefore allowed so that something worse does not come out of the bad. What kind of good is this, which is allowed out of fear of the worst! For he would never have added: let each one have his own wife, if he had not said in advance: but for the sake of fornication. Abandon fornication and do not say: let every man have his own wife. This is the same as if someone said: it is good to eat wheat bread and eat the purest coarse flour; But so that someone forced by hunger does not eat ox dung, I allow him to eat barley. Is it really because wheat will not have its purity if barley is preferred to dung? Good naturally is that which is not compared with bad, which is not obscured by the preference of another. At the same time, the wisdom of the apostle is worthy of attention. He did not say: it is good not to have a wife, but said: it is good not to touch a wife, as if in touching there is a danger, as if he who touches her will not escape from the one who entices the husbands of honest souls, who seduces the hearts of young men: will anyone tie fire into his bowels and not burn his vestments, or will someone walk on coals of fire and not burn his feet? ( Proverbs 6:26–28 ). So, just as someone who touches fire is immediately burned, so a man and a woman, upon contact, feel their nature and understand the difference between sexes. And pagan fables tell that Mithras and Erichthonius were born from stone or from earth from one passionate desire. Therefore, our Joseph, when the Egyptian woman wanted to touch him, ran away from her hand and, as if bitten by a mad dog, so that the poison would not spread little by little, he threw away the clothes she had touched. But for the sake of fornication let every man have his own wife, and every wife have her own husband. He did not say that for the sake of fornication, let everyone marry; in this case, with this apology he would loosen the reins of lust, so that in order to avoid fornication, no matter how many times a wife dies, so many times it would be possible to take another; but he said: let each one have his own wife. Let him, he says, have his own wife, let him use his own, whom he had before he believed, whom it would be good not to touch, and having believed in Christ, to know her only as a sister, and not as a wife, if fornication did not excuse touching her. The wife does not own her body, but the husband does; Likewise, the husband does not own his body, but the wife does. This whole question applies to those living in a marriage union - is it possible for them to let their wives go, which the Lord forbade in the Gospel. That is why the apostle said: it is good for a man not to touch his wife; but since he who has once married does not have the power to abstain, except with the consent of his wife, and if she has not sinned, cannot divorce her, then he is obliged to give her her due: he voluntarily united himself with her, so that he can be forced to give her her due. Do not deprive yourself of each other, only by agreement for the time being, but remain in prayer. I ask you, what kind of good is this that prevents you from praying, that does not allow you to receive the body of Christ? While I fulfill the duty of a husband, I do not fulfill the duty of abstinence. The same apostle in another place (1 Thessalonians 5:17) commands to pray unceasingly. If one must pray unceasingly, then one must never serve marriage, for when I pay tribute to my wife, I cannot pray. Look at how the church instructs, what the Apostle Peter, who experienced the bonds of marriage, teaches Christians: husbands live together with their wives according to reason, as giving honor to the weakest vessel of women, as they are heirs of grace-filled life, so that your prayers do not cease (1 Peter 3:7). So he says in the same sense, because in the same spirit, that marital duty interferes with prayers. And what he says in the same way encourages husbands to imitate, because above he already commanded wives, saying: let (husbands) see your chaste life: let not the outward braiding of the hair, or the overlaying of gold, or the garments of lasciviousness: but the hidden man of the heart, in the uncorruption of a meek and quiet spirit, which is of great worth before God (1 Pet. 3:2-4). Do you see what cohabitation between husbands and wives is commanded? So that they live according to reason, so that they know what God wants, what God desires, so that they give honor to the female vessel. If we restrain ourselves from copulation, then we give honor to our wives: it is obvious that, on the contrary, it is dishonor to them if we do not restrain. And he says to the wives: let your husbands see your chaste life and the adornment in the hidden heart of a person, in the incorruption of a meek and silent spirit. O word truly worthy of an apostle, and the stone of Christ! He gives the law to husbands and wives, and, having condemned the adornment of the flesh, preaches chastity and the adornment of the inner man in the incorruptible beauty of a meek and silent spirit, as if to say: since your outer man has undergone corruption and you have ceased to have the bliss of incorruptibility, which belongs to virgins, then imitate the incorruption of the spirit by at least strict abstinence and keep with your mind what you cannot observe with your body: for these Christ demands these riches, these ornaments of your union. And so that, based on further words: let you remain in prayer and gather together again, whoever thinks that the apostle wants this, and does not allow it only because of a greater fall, he immediately adds: let not Satan tempt you with your intemperance. A truly plausible concession – and all the same. What he is ashamed to call by his own name, what he prefers to the temptation of Satan, what has its basis in intemperance - we are trying to explain this as obscure, while he himself explained what he wrote: but I say this out of condescension, and not by command. And we also interpret to ourselves that he does not call marriage an indulgence, but a commandment, as if second and third marriages are not allowed in the same way, as if the doors of the church are not opened to fornicators through repentance, and what’s more, even to incesters. For the one who was defiled with his stepmother, whom in the first letter to the Corinthians he handed over to Satan (1 Cor. 5) for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit might be saved, in the second he comforts (2 Cor. 2) and takes care that he is not consumed by excessive sorrow. What the Apostle wants is different, and what he allows is different. By acting in accordance with what he wants, we deserve a reward, but in accordance with what he allows, we abuse. Do you want to know what the apostle wants? - read further: I want all men to be like me (1 Cor. 7:7). Blessed is he who is like Paul. Happy is the one who heeds the apostle who commands, and not the one who condescends. This, he says, is what I want, what I want is for you to be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. He is a virgin from the Virgin, uncorrupted from the incorruptible. Since we are human and cannot imitate the birth of the Savior, let us at least imitate His life. The first is a property of deity and bliss, the latter is accessible to human limitations and achievement. I want all people to be like me, so that, by becoming like me, they will become like Christ, to whom I am like. He who believes in Christ must eat as He went to eat, and let him also walk in the same way (1 John 2:6). But everyone has his own talent from God, both in this and in his own way (1 Cor. 7:7). - What, he says, I would like, obviously; but since there are various talents in the church, I also allow marriage, so as not to seem to condemn nature. Please note that the gift of virginity is different and the gift of marriage is different. If the reward for married women and virgins were the same, then he would never have said: but each one receives his own gift from God, both in this way and in the same way. Where each has a special property, there, on the other hand, there is a difference between each. I admit that marriage is a gift of God, but there is a big difference between a gift and a gift. Finally, the apostle also said about the same repentant after incest: let you give and comfort the opposite, and if you give him anything, he also (2 Cor. 2:7, 10), and so that we do not think that we can despise the gift of a person, he adds: for if you give anything, you have given him free gifts for your sake, in the presence of Jesus Christ. The gifts of Christ are varied. Therefore, Joseph, in His image, had multi-colored clothing, and in the forty-fourth psalm we read: the queen appeared at your right hand in a robe of gold, robes and speckles (Ps. 44:10), and the Apostle Peter says: as heirs of the manifold (multiplicis) grace of God (1 Pet. 3:7), which in Greek is more expressively denoted by the word ποικίλης, i.e. different. It follows: I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them, if they remain as I did. If they can’t resist, they’ll encroach: it’s better to get married than to get thin. Having allowed the married to enjoy marriage and shown what he himself wants and what he allows, he moves on to the celibates and widows and presents an example of himself and calls them happy if they remain as he does. If they do not restrain themselves, then they encroach—the same as above: for the sake of fornication, and let Satan not tempt you with your intemperance. It also represents the reason why he said if they can’t resist, they will encroach; - It’s better to get married than to get liquid. That's why it's better to get married because it's worse to get inflamed. Destroy the kindling of lust, and he will not say it’s better to get married. The best always points to the worst with which it is compared, and not to the purity of a good that is incomparable in itself. He seems to say this: It is better to have one eye than to have none, it is better to lean on one leg and support the other part of the body with a stick than to crawl with broken knees. What are you saying, apostle? I do not believe your words: if you are unskilled in speech, yet not in understanding (2 Cor. 11:6). Just as the words came from humility: I am not worthy to be called an apostle, I am the least of all the apostles and like a certain monster (1 Cor. 15:8-9), so I consider this a word of humility. You know the subtleties of speech, which is why you borrow some evidence from Enymenides, and from Menander, and from Aratus. When you talk about abstinence and virginity, you express yourself: it is good not to touch your wife; It is good for them, if they continue as I did; I consider this goodness to be a real need; It is good for a person to be like this. When you move on to marriage, you don’t say: it’s good to get married, because you can’t add: what to get excited about, but you say: it’s better to get married than to get married. If marriage in itself is good, then do not compare it with divorce, but simply say: getting married is good. I am suspicious of the good quality of that object, which is forced to be considered a lesser evil only by the greatness of another evil. And I want not less evil, but pure goodness in itself. The first section has been considered so far, let's move on to the next one. And to those who are married I command, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband: even if she is separated, let her remain celibate, or let her reconcile herself with her husband: and the husband must not let his wife go. To the rest I speak, not the Lord. If a brother has an unfaithful wife, and she deigns to live with him, let him not leave her, and so on to the place where he says: everyone is called by the Lord. Thus let him walk: and thus I command in all churches (1 Cor. 7:10 et seq.). This passage is not relevant to the present dispute. In accordance with the word of the Lord, the apostle teaches that a wife, except for the reason of adultery, should not be released, and that a divorced woman, while her husband is alive, should not marry another, but rather should be reconciled with her husband. And for those whom faith found in a marriage union, that is, if one of the two believed, it commands that the believer should not leave the unbeliever. And having stated the reasons - that an unbeliever is a candidate for faith if he does not want to be separated from a believer - on the contrary, he commands that if an unbeliever rejects a believer because of faith in Christ, then the believer must separate so as not to prefer a spouse to Christ, whom even the soul should prefer. And now many, neglecting the command of the Apostle, unite with the pagans and desecrate the temples of Christ with idols, and do not understand that they are part of the body of him whose ribs are. The Apostle allowed union with infidels to those who, having husbands, subsequently believed in Christ, and not to those who, being Christians, married pagans. To these latter in another place he says: Do not be subject to another yoke like unfaithfulness: for some partake of righteousness in iniquity; or some communication between light and darkness; some kind of agreement between Christ and Belial; or which part I will return with the infidel; or some laying down of the Church of God from idols; For you are the living church of God (2 Cor. 6:14 et seq.). Although I know that very many of the matrons will become bitter against me, although with the same shamelessness with which they despised the Lord, they will rage against me - a flea (pulicem) and the least of the Christians: nevertheless, I will say what I think, I will say what the Apostle taught me, that they are not women of righteousness, but of iniquity; not light, but darkness; not Christ, but Belial; not churches of the living God, but churches and idols of the dead. Do you want to make it more obvious that a Christian woman is not allowed to marry a pagan? Listen to the same apostle: a woman, he says, is bound by the law, while her husband lives as long as possible: but if her husband dies, she is free to eat, but wants to commit violence for no good, but in the Lord (1 Cor. 7:39), i.e. for a Christian. He who allows a second and third marriage in the Lord also prohibits the first with a pagan. Therefore, Abraham also conjures the slave on his thigh, i.e. in Christ, who was to be born of his seed, so that he would not bring a foreign wife for his son Isaac. And Ezra tames the wrath of God by rejecting wives of this kind (1 Ezra 10). The prophet Malachi also says: Judah betrayed and committed abomination in Israel and in Jerusalem. For he profaned the holy thing of the Lord and loved and kissed the daughter of a foreign god. The Lord will require the man who does this, teacher and disciple, from the tents of Jacob; and bringing gifts to the Lord of hosts ( Mal. 2:11–12 ). I said this so that those who compare marriage with virginity would at least know that such marriages are lower than bigamy and trigamy. To the above reasoning, in which he taught that a believing spouse should not be separated from an unbeliever, but remain married as their faith found them, and everyone, whether single or married, should continue to live in the state in which he was at baptism into Christ, he directly adds the parables of the circumcised and the pagan, the slave and the free, and using the metaphor of these parables, he talks about the married and the unmarried. If anyone is called to be circumcised, let him not introduce uncircumcision; If anyone is called to be uncircumcised, let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God. Whoever is in the rank in which he is called to be, let him remain in that. Were you called to be a slave, and not negligently? But even if you can be free, enslave yourself more. A servant called in the Lord, a freeman of the Lord, is also a called freeman, a servant of Christ. At the price of purchase, you will not be a slave of man. In every man who is called to be, brethren, let him abide in him before God (1 Cor. 7:18 et seq.). Since some, I think, will dispute such an understanding, we can ask, firstly, what is the sequence in the speech of the apostle, when, discussing husbands and wives, he suddenly moves on to comparing Jew and pagan, slave and free, and at the end of this reasoning again returns to the virgins, saying: about virgins the commandment of the Lord is not the imam (1 Cor. 7:25); What does the comparison of Jew and pagan, slave and free mean among discussions about marriage and virginity? Secondly, what could be the meaning of the words: is anyone called to be circumcised and not introduce uncircumcision (non adducat praeputium)? Is it possible that someone who has once circumcised the foreskin can, if he wants, take it back again? Then in what sense can the words be explained: a servant called in the Lord, a freeman of the Lord is; in the same way is the called freeman, the servant of Christ (v. 22)? Fourthly, how is it that the one who commanded slaves to obey their carnal masters now says: You will not be slaves of men (v. 23)? Finally, how can the words relate to slavery or circumcision: let everyone in whom he is called abide in him before the Lord? This is the opposite of the previous thought. For if we have heard: You will not be slaves of man, then on what basis can we remain in the rank in which we were called, when many have believed, having carnal masters, whom they are now forbidden to obey? Further, in relation to circumcision, what does it mean: to remain in the same rank in which you were called, when in another place the same apostle exclaims: Behold, Paul, I say to you. For if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you for nothing (Gal.5:2)? So it remains to be accepted that circumcision and uncircumcision, slave and free, must be adapted to the meaning of what was said above and depend on the previous one. If anyone is called to be circumcised, let him not introduce uncircumcision. If, says the apostle, at the time when you were called and believed in Christ, you were called circumcised from your wife and were celibate, then do not marry, that is, do not introduce uncircumcision, so as not to burden the freedom of circumcision and chastity with the burden of marriage. Likewise, if anyone is called uncircumcised, let him not be circumcised. You had, he says, a wife when you believed: do not consider faith a cause of discord, because God called us into the world. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God. Without works, celibacy and marriage are not at all useful, when even faith, which is the primary virtue of Christians, if it does not have works, is considered dead; and on this basis both the virgin Vesta and the consort Juno could be considered among the saints. Whoever is in a rank, in it he is called to be, let him abide in that. Whether he had or did not have a wife when he believed, he must remain in the state in which he was called. By this he does not so much encourage virgins to marry as prohibits divorce. And just as he does not give permission to those who have wives to let them go, so he deprives virgins of the right to marry. You were called to be a slave, but not negligently, but even if you can be free, enslave yourself more. Even if you have, he says, a wife, and are connected with her, and pay tribute to her and have no power over your body, and (more clearly) if you are a slave to your wife, do not grieve about it, do not sigh about your lost virginity. Even if you can find any reasons for divorce in order to enjoy the freedom of chastity, do not seek your own salvation with the destruction of another. Hold your wife for a short time: do not warn her if she hesitates on the way, wait until she walks with you. If you endure it patiently, your wife will turn into a sister. The servant called in the Lord is the freeman of the Lord; Likewise, the called freeman, the servant, is Christ’s. Presents the reasons why he does not want his wives to be left; for this he says: I command that those who believe in Christ from paganism do not leave the marriages they entered into before converting to faith, because the one who believes having a wife is not obliged to serve God in the same way as virgins and unmarried people, but in some way he is more free and for him the bridle of slavery is loosened, and while he is a slave to his wife, he is a freeman of the Lord. Further, the one who believed without a wife and was called by the Lord free from the slavery of marriage is truly a slave of Christ. What bliss it is to be a slave not of a wife, but of Christ, to serve not the flesh, but the spirit! Cling to the Lord; there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). And so that it does not seem that with the above words: were you called a slave, but do not be negligent, but even if you can be free, enslave yourself more - he weakens abstinence and transfers us into slavery to our wives, he adds a thought that removes any trick: at the price of purchase, of course, do not become a slave. We have been redeemed by the most precious blood of Christ, the Lamb was slain for us, and sprinkled with the warmest dew of hyssop, we have cleansed away every filth of destructive lust. We, for whom Pharaoh died in baptism and all his army was drowned, why do we want Egypt again and after manna, the food of angels, sigh for garlic and onions and melons and the meats of Pharaoh? Having prefaced the discussion about marriage and abstinence, he finally moves on to virgins and says: I am not the Lord’s commandment about virgins: but I give advice, because I have received mercy from the Lord to be faithful. I consider this good to be in present need, as it is good for a man to be so (1 Cor. 7:25-26). Here our enemy revels in complete delight, these words, like the most powerful battering ram, shaking the wall of virginity. “Behold,” he says, the apostle confesses that he does not have the Lord’s commandment regarding virgins, and he who commanded with authority regarding husbands and wives does not dare to command what the Lord has not commanded. And fair enough. For what is commanded is made an obligation, what is given as an obligation must necessarily be fulfilled, what must necessarily be fulfilled entails punishment if it is not fulfilled, because what is commanded in vain is what is left to the arbitrariness of the one to whom it is commanded.” If the Lord commanded virginity, it would seem that He condemns marriage and destroys the breeding ground of people, from which virginity itself is born. If He had cut the root, how would He have demanded the fruit? If I had not laid the foundations in advance, how would I have built the building and put a roof on top that would cover the entire building? With great difficulty, diggers dig through mountains and penetrate almost into the underworld of the earth to find gold. And when a necklace is made from the smallest grains, first through melting in a forge, and then by the skillful hand of an artist, it is not the one who extracts gold from the mud that is called happy, but the one who enjoys the beauty of gold. Do not be surprised if, in the midst of carnal excitements and vicious passions, angelic life is not required of us, but only instilled in us. When a command is given, there is a need for the one doing it. The commands, he says, are not the Lord’s imam, but I give advice because I have received mercy from the Lord. If you do not have the command of the Lord, then how do you dare to give advice about which you do not have orders? The apostle will answer me: how do you want me to command what the Lord has proposed more than commanded? He, the creator and the poor, knowing the frailty of the vessel he made, left virginity to the power of the listener, and I, a teacher of languages, who was all things and gained all (1 Cor. 9:22), how can I immediately, at the very beginning, place the burden of perpetual virginity on the necks of believers? Let them first learn the holiday of marriage, let them live for some time without prayer, so that, having received a taste for chastity, they will always wish to have what they enjoyed only partly. The Lord, tempted by the Pharisees as to whether it was possible to let go of wives according to the Law of Moses, completely forbade this. Thinking about this, His disciples said to Him: If such is the guilt of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry. He said to them: not all can bear this word, but to them it is given to eat. They are eunuchs, who were born from their mother’s womb: and they are eunuchs, who were born from man: and they are eunuchs, who have corrupted the kingdom for themselves for the sake of heaven. He who is able to contain, let him contain (Matthew 19:10 et seq.). It is clear why the apostle said: I am not the Lord’s commandment about virgins, no doubt because the Lord said before: not all can receive this word, but to them it has been given to eat, and whoever is able to receive it, let him receive it. ´Αγωνοζέτης (the hero of heroism) offers a prize, encourages heroism, holds the reward of virginity in his hand, points to the purest source and says: let him who thirsts come to me and drink. He who is able to contain, let him contain. He does not say: whether you want or not, you must drink and strive, but whoever, he says, wants and who can struggle and drink, will win, he will be satisfied. And that is why the Lord loves virgins more, because they voluntarily do what they were not commanded to do. Doing what you are not obliged to do is a higher merit than doing what is required of you. The apostles, understanding the burden of marriage, say: if there is such a fault between a man and his wife, it is better not to marry. Approving their thought, the Lord says: it is true that it is inconvenient for a person striving for the kingdom of heaven to marry, but this is a difficult matter and not everyone can accept this word, but those who are given it. Some were made eunuchs by nature, others by human violence. I like those eunuchs who have been emasculated not by necessity, but by free will. I willingly accept into My bosom those who have castrated themselves into the kingdom for the sake of the heavenly kingdom and for the sake of serving Me and did not want to be what they were born with. In this case, you should pay attention to the thought: those who have distorted the kingdom for themselves for the sake of the heavenly. If those who have been castrated receive the kingdom of heaven as retribution, then those who have not been castrated cannot receive places with those who have been castrated. He is able, he says, to contain, let him contain. It is a matter of great faith and great feat to be the purest church of God, to offer oneself as a burnt offering to the Lord, and, according to the word of the same apostle, to be holy in both body and spirit. These are precisely the eunuchs who, due to barrenness, considering themselves dry wood, hear from Isaiah (Is. 56:4-5) that instead of sons and daughters they have a prepared place in heaven. Their prototype is Ebedmelech - the eunuch of Jeremiah (Jer. 38) and that eunuch of Queen Candace in the Acts of the Apostles, who received the name husband for the strength of his faith. To them, Clement, the successor of the Apostle Peter, whom the Apostle Paul mentions, writes letters in which almost his entire speech was about the purity of virginity. Finally, as is easy to see from their own writings, such were many apostolic men and martyrs, men renowned both for holiness and eloquence. I consider this good to be for the present need (1 Cor. 7:26). What kind of need is it that, destroying the marriage union, demands the freedom of virginity? Woe to those who are not idle and to those who milk in thy days (Matthew 24:19; Mark 13:17; Luke 21:23). What is condemned here is not fornication, not debauchery, the condemnation of which there is no doubt, but conception in the womb, children's crying, the fruits and deeds of marriage. For it is good for man to be (1 Cor. 7:26). If it is good for a person to be so, then it is bad for a person not to be so. If you are attached to your wife, do not seek permission; if you have renounced your wife, do not seek a wife. Each of us has our own rights: give me what is mine, and own yours. If you become attached to your wife, do not give her a divorce. If I am estranged from my wife, I should not look for a wife. Just as I do not dissolve marriages if they are once tied, so do not you tie up what is permitted. At the same time, you should pay attention to the meaning of words. He who has a wife is called a debtor, an uncircumcised man, a slave of his wife, and, as is typical of wicked slaves, a bound man. And he who lives without a wife, firstly, is not a debtor to anyone, then he is circumcised, thirdly, he is free, and finally, he is permitted. Let's skim through the rest, because the length of the book does not allow us to dwell too long on details. Even if you got married, you have not sinned. It is another thing not to sin, and another thing to do good. And even if a virgin encroaches, she has not sinned. Not the virgin who once dedicated herself to serving God, for if any of them marries, she will be condemned because she has abandoned the first faith. And if he imagines that this is said about widows, then all the more will it be valid in relation to virgins, when this is not allowed even to those who were once allowed. For virgins who married after initiation are not so much adulteresses as incesters. And so that it does not seem that with the words: even if a virgin encroaches, she has not sinned, he again calls the celibate to marriage, immediately restrains himself and, by introducing something else, weakens what he allowed, saying: but such will be the sorrow of the flesh. Who will it be that has the affliction of the flesh? Those to whom he made leniency above: even if you got married, you have not sinned; and even if a virgin commits trespass, she has not sinned: but such sorrow will they have in the flesh. We, unfamiliar with these things, thought that marriage had at least joy for the flesh. And if for married couples there is sorrow even in the flesh, in which alone they apparently have pleasure, then what remains for which one could get married, when there is sorrow in the spirit, and in the soul, and in the very flesh of those marrying? I will spare you. So, he says, I do not expose before you the sorrows of the flesh, as if there were no more important reasons for which you should not marry. But I say this, brethren, because the time has ceased, so that the wives of the haves may be like the wives of the have-nots. I no longer talk about virgins, about whom there is no doubt that they are blessed. I turn to marriage. Time is short, the Lord is near. Even if we lived nine hundred years like the ancient people, we should nevertheless consider short that which must someday end and cease to exist. And now, when not so much the joy as the sorrow of marriage is so short, why do we take wives whom we will soon be forced to leave? And those who weep, he says, as if they were not weeping, and those who rejoice, as if they were not rejoicing, and those who bought, as if they did not contain, and those who demanded this world, as if they did not require: for the image of this world is passing away (1 Cor. 7:30-31). If the world in which everything is contained passes away, then the image and life of this world will pass away like clouds, and among the other relationships of the world, marriage will also pass away. For after the resurrection there will be no marriages. And if death is the limit of marriage, then why don’t we turn need into free desire, why, in the hope of reward, won’t we bring to God what will be taken from us against our will? He who is not married cares about the things of the Lord, how to please his wife, and is divided. Let's look at the care of a virgin and how it differs from the care of a husband. A virgin strives to please the Lord, a husband strives to please his wife, and in order to please his wife, he cares about worldly things, which will undoubtedly pass away in peace; “and was divided,” i.e. amused by many parts of worries and sorrows. This is not the place to describe the troubles of marriage and, as it were, to flaunt rhetorical speech in general places. I think this subject was developed in great detail in the book against Elvidius and in the book I wrote about Eustochius. And Tertullian, when he was still a youth, amused himself with this matter; and my teacher Gregory Nazianzen expounded this in Greek verse, discussing virginity and marriage. Now, briefly, I point out that in the Latin codes this passage reads like this: “the virgin and the wife were separated.” Although this reading has its own meaning and even I, due to the nature of the place, explained it in this sense, but this reading is not truly apostolic. The Apostle wrote as we cited above: “he cares about worldly things, how to please his wife, and is divided,” and having finished this thought, he moves on to virgins and abstinents and says: “a woman who has not committed violence and a virgin cares about the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit.” Not every celibate woman is a virgin, but of course there are also celibate virgins. Either for the sake of beauty of speech, he wanted to express this in other words: a non-violent wife and a virgin, or with these words he wanted to define what a non-violent woman is, so that we would not consider harlots who are not united by marriage to anyone to be non-violent. So, what is the virgin who has not violated herself concerned about? About the Lord, how to please the Lord, may she be holy in body and spirit. If there had been nothing else, if the virgin had received no more reward, this preference alone would have been enough for her - to think about the Lord. And now he shows what kind of thought this is: let her be holy in both body and spirit. Because some, although they are virgin in body, are not virgin in spirit, since although their body is pure, their soul is corrupt. But sacrifice to Christ is that virginity that is not defiled either by the thoughts of the mind or the lust of the flesh. On the contrary, a married woman thinks about worldly things, how to please her husband. Just as a married man worries about worldly things, how to please his wife, so a married woman thinks about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. But we are not of this world, which lies in evil, the image of which is passing away and about which the apostle says: if we were of the world, the world would love its own (John 15:19). And so that one cannot think that he is imposing a very heavy burden of chastity against his will, he immediately adds the reasons for his exhortation and says: I say this for your benefit: I will not impose force on you, “but to encourage you to do what is honest and allows you to serve the Lord with diligence, without any distraction” (In this, as in the previous verses, Jerome’s translation differs from the Slavic). The Latin language does not express the characteristics of Greek words, because with what words could anyone translate: πρὸς τὸ ἔυσχημον καὶ εὐπρ ό σεδρον τῷ Κυρίω ἀπερισπάστως? Therefore, due to the difficulty of translation, these words are almost absent in Latin codes. So we will use what we translated. The Apostle does not put a noose on us, does not force us to do what we do not want, but exhorts us to do what is honest and good and contributes to serving the Lord with diligence, always taking care of this and being ready to await the will of God, so that whatever He commands, like a nimble and armed warrior, we will immediately carry out what is ordered and do it without any amusement, setting aside everything that is given, according to Ecclesiastes, to the people of this world, so that they were distracted by it. And if someone notices that his virgin, that is, the flesh, lusts and is inflamed with desire, and cannot restrain himself, then he faces a double need - either to drink his wife or to fall: he can do what he wants; he does not sin if he marries, but, he says, he does what he wants, and not what he should. He does not sin if he marries, but he does not do well if he marries. And he who stands firm in his heart, has no need, but has the power to have his own will and has decided in his heart, to take care of his virgin, and does good. Likewise, when you give your virgin to marriage, she does good, and when she is not given, she does better (1 Cor. 7:37-38). He expressively and accurately said above: “whoever marries does not sin”; here he says: “Whoever keeps his virginity does good.” Turn away, says Scripture, from evil, and do good (Ps. 36:27). In this case we evade, in this case we follow; in one beginning, in the other perfection. But so that, on the basis of his words: giving your virgin to marriage does good, someone does not think that our remark is unfounded, he immediately weakens this good and obscures it by comparison with the best and says: and do not give it better. If I had not added “does better,” I would never have prefixed: “does good.” And where there is good and better, there is not the same reward for the good and the best, and where the reward is not the same, there, without a doubt, the gifts are different. So between marriage and virginity there is such a difference as between not sinning and doing good, or, to put it mildly, between good and better. Having finished the discussion about marriage and virginity with a careful limitation of the commands regarding both, so as not to deviate either to the left or to the right, but to follow the royal path and fulfill it: do not be truthful to the great (Eccl. 7:17), - he again compares monogamy with bigamy, and just as marriage subordinated virginity, so deuteramy subordinates monogamy and says: a wife is bound by law at all times. her husband lives: if her husband dies, she is free to eat, but wants to commit violence for no good: but in the Lord. The most blessed one is, if he continues according to my advice: for I imagine that I also have the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 7:39-40). Allows a second marriage, but to those who wish, but to those who cannot abstain, so that those blessed in Christ do not desire marriage, in which they will be condemned as having abandoned the first faith; and he allows this because many have turned aside after Satan (1 Tim. 5:15). However, he says, they will be more blessed if they remain so, according to my advice. Further, so that the authority of the apostle, as a person, would not seem insignificant, he added: I consider myself to have the Spirit of God. When he calls for abstinence, there is the advice not of man, but of the Spirit of God, and when he condescends to allow marriage, he does not name the Spirit of God, but weighs the advice of prudence, making leniency to each as much as each can bear. All these passages should be taken in this sense: a married wife is bound to her husband by law; If her husband dies, break away from the law of men. In the same way, as I live, it happens to the husband of an adulterer, if he becomes a husband to another: if her husband dies, she is free from the law not to be an adulteress, having been to another husband (Rom. 7:2-4), and this place is to Timothy: I want to encroach upon young widows, to give birth to children, to build a house, and not to give a single guilt to the other for the sake of blasphemy. Behold, a certain one will be corrupted after Satan (1 Tim. 5:14–16), and other similar places. For just as he allows virgins to marry out of fear of fornication and excuses what is not required in itself, so to avoid the same fornication he allows widows a second marriage. Because it is better to know even another and a third, but one husband, than many, i.e. It is more bearable for one person to be a harlot than for many. That is why this Samaritan woman, in the Gospel of John, who said that she had a sixth husband, is convicted by the Lord that this is not her husband (John 4:17-18). Where there is a number of husbands, there is no longer a husband, who is actually one. From the beginning, one rib was turned into one wife. And he says, two will become one flesh (Gen. 2:24); not three, not four; otherwise it’s not two, if many. The first Lamech, the bloody and murderer, divided one flesh into two wives, and washed fratricide and bigamy with the same punishment of the flood. One was avenged seven times, another seventy-seven. As much as there is a difference in numbers, so does the crime. How holy bigamy is can be seen from the fact that a bigamist cannot be elected to the clergy, and therefore the apostle says in his letter to Timothy: let a widow not be less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one husband (1 Tim. 5:9). Here the whole instruction concerns those widows who feed on the alms of the church, and therefore the age is prescribed so that they only benefit from the maintenance of the poor who can no longer work. At the same time, note that she who has had two husbands, even if she is elderly and weak and poor, is not worthy of receiving support from the church. And if the bread of alms is taken away from her, isn’t it even more so the bread that comes down from heaven, whoever eats it unworthily will be guilty of disrespecting the body and blood of the Lord? These above testimonies, in which widows are allowed to marry if they wish, are explained by some in relation to those widows who, after the death of their husbands, found themselves converted to the faith of Christ. For it would be inconsistent if the apostle commanded after baptism, in the event of the death of a husband, to marry another, when he also commanded those who have wives that they should be as those who do not have one - and therefore would allow an indefinite number of wives, because after baptism into Christ, even if there is a third and fourth wife, they should be considered like the first. Otherwise, if after baptism, after the death of the first, a second husband is taken, then why not have a sixth and further ones after the death of the second, and third, and fourth, and fifth? Because it may happen that, due to some misfortune or by the judgment of God, who allows the repetition of marriage, a young woman will marry many husbands, and an older woman, even after one husband, will become a widow in old age. The first Adam is monogamous, the second is celibate. Those who approve of bigamy must imagine a third Adam whom they could follow. But suppose that Paul allowed a second marriage: for the same reason he allows a third, and a fourth, no matter how many times the husband dies. The apostle is forced to want many things that he does not want. He circumcised Timothy, shaved his own bald head, performed the sacrifice with bare feet, grew his hair, and circumcised him at Cenchrea. Meanwhile, he condemned the Galatians and reproached Peter for separating him from the pagans because of the performance of Jewish rites. Thus, just as in other church orders he was a Jew to the Jews, and a pagan to the pagans, in order to win everyone: so he allowed bigamy for the intemperate and did not determine the number of marriages, so that wives, seeing that after the death of their husband, a second marriage was allowed to them in the same sense as the third and fourth, would be ashamed to marry another time, so as not to be equal to those with three and four husbands. Because when they speak from the singular, there is no difference whether it is a second or third marriage, since the person entering into this marriage ceases to be monogamous. All is good, but not all is good (1 Cor. 6:12, 10:23). I do not condemn those who are bigamous, even those who are threeamed, and, if I may say, even those who are octamarried: I will even say more, I accept even a repentant fornicator. Whatever is equally permissible must also be weighed with the same scales. But since he draws us to the Old Testament and, starting from Adam, reaches Zechariah and Elizabeth and then contrasts us with Peter and the other apostles, then we must follow the same trail of controversial points and show that chastity has always been preferred to marriage. About Adam and Eve it should be said that before the crime in paradise they were virgins, and the marriage was after the sin and outside of paradise. Then it should be added that the words: for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh - the apostle explains by adding: this is a great mystery, but I speak into Christ and into the church (Eph. 5:31-32). Christ is a virgin in the flesh, but one in spirit, for he has one church, about which the same apostle said: husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loves the church (Eph. 5:26; Col. 3:19). If Christ loves the church holyly, chastely, without any blemish; then husbands should love their wives in chastity, and each should be able to control his vessel in holiness and honor, and not in kindling lust, like the pagans who do not know God: for God did not call us into uncleanness, but into holiness (1 Thess. 4:7), putting off the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, renewed in understanding in the image of him who created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian and Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all (Col. 3:9-11). The image of the Creator does not have a marriage union. When the difference of sex is destroyed and we put off the old man and put on the new, then we are reborn into Christ - a virgin, who was both born of a virgin and reborn through a virgin. And what is said: grow and multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28), then it was necessary to first plant and grow the forest so that there would be something to cut down later. At the same time, you need to pay attention to the power of the word - fill the earth. Marriage fills the earth, virginity is heaven. But even according to the Jewish original, it should be noted that while the Scripture on the first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth days, after the completion of the works of each of these days, says: and God saw that it was good, it does not add these words on the second day, leaving us to understand that the dual number is not good, because it is separated from unity and prefigures the marriage union. Therefore, in Noah’s ark, all the animals that entered in pairs are unclean (Gen. ch. 7 and 8), and an odd number is clean. In the dual number, another secret is revealed - that bigamy is not approved in both animals and unclean birds, because the unclean come in in pairs, and the clean come in in seven pairs so that Noah after the flood would have something to immediately bring to God from this unequal number. And if Enoch was changed and Noah was preserved in the flood, then I think that Enoch was not changed because he had a wife, but because he was the first to call on the Lord and believe in the Savior, which the Apostle Paul teaches in great detail in his Epistle to the Hebrews. Further, Noah, who was preserved as a kind of second root for the human race, of course, had to be preserved with his wife and sons. However, this is the secret of the Scriptures. That ark, according to the Apostle Peter, was an image of the church in which eight souls were saved. When Noah enters it, both he and his sons are separated from their wives, and when he comes out to earth, the couples are united, and what is in the ark, i.e. in the church, it was separated, it is united in the life of the world. At the same time, if the ark had many compartments and chambers with two and three tiers, had different animals and, according to the difference in animals, the rooms were either larger or smaller, then I think that this variety of rooms prefigured the diversity of the church. And if he objects to us that at the second blessing of God we were given permission to eat meat, which permission was not given at the first, then let him know that just as divorce, according to the word of the Savior, was not given at first, but was allowed through Moses to the human race because of our hardness of heart, so eating meat was not known before the flood. And after the flood, hard veins and poisonous juices of meat were given for our teeth - just as quails were given to the murmuring people in the desert. The Apostle, in his letter to the Ephesians, teaches that God, in the fulfillment of the times, purposed to restore all things and to bring back to the beginning in Christ Jesus everything that is in heaven and on earth. Therefore, the Savior himself in the Apocalypse of John says: I am α and ω, the beginning and the end (Rev. 1:17, 22:13). From the beginning of human creation, we neither ate meat, nor gave divorce, nor figuratively circumcised the foreskin. This way we reached before the flood. And after the flood, when a law was given that no one could fulfill, meat was given to us for food, divorce was allowed for our hardness of heart, and the knife of circumcision was introduced, as if the hand of God had worked in us more than what was needed. And after Christ came at the end of time, he raised ω to α and brought the end to the beginning: we are not allowed to give divorce, and we are not circumcised, and we do not eat meat, according to the word of the Apostle: it is good not to eat meat, but rather to drink wine (Rom. 14:21), for wine together with meat was sanctified after the flood. What can we say about Abraham, as he himself says, triple-groomed, who received the sign of faith at circumcision? If we imitate the number of his wives, then we must also imitate circumcision, because we cannot partly imitate it and partly condemn it. Further, Isaac, the husband of one Rebecca, prefigures the Church of Christ and condemns the voluptuousness of bigamy. And if Jacob had two pairs of wives and concubines and our enemy does not want to rest on the fact that the sick-eyed, ugly and fertile Leah designed the image of the synagogue, and the beautiful and long-barren Rachel presented the secret of the church, then let him know that Jacob did this at a time when he was among the Assyrians and served in Mesopotamia the very rude master Laban. And when he wished to enter the holy land and on Mount Gilead, where the ruler of Mesopotamia did not find anything in his chests, he erected a hill of testimony, swearing that he would never return to the place in which he had enslaved, and at the stream of Yaboh, having wrestled with an angel, he began to limp and πλατυ νεῦρον (i.e. the vein of the thigh) weakened, he immediately received the name Israel, and that once beloved wife, for whom he worked, near Bethlehem, in which the preacher of virginity the Lord was born, from the son of sorrow (i.e. Benjamin) receives death (Gen. 35:18), and the Mesopotamian connections die in the gospel city. But I wonder why he presented us with Judah and Tamar as an example, unless he delights in harlots, and Abnan, who was killed because he did not want seed for his brother, as if we approved of any shedding of seed without producing children. Regarding Moses, it is obvious that he would have suffered misfortune in the inn if Zipporah, which means bird, had not circumcised his son, and had not cut off the foreskin of the marriage with the knife of the Gospel. This is, of course, Moses, who, having seen the great vision and the angel or Lord speaking in the bush, could not proceed to it as soon as he loosened the straps of his shoes and threw off the ties of marriage. And this is not surprising in relation to the friend, prophet and lawgiver of God, when all the people, having approached Mount Sinai and heard the word of God, received the command to cleanse themselves for three days and abstain from their wives. We know that the same thing (although I allow myself to incoherently mix up the order of history) was said by the priest Ahimelech to the fleeing David: if children keep their essence from their wives, - and he answered: let us abstain from wives in the evening and on the third day (1 Samuel 21:4-5). For those who rose from women's beds could not eat the showbread, like the body of Christ. And we should pay attention in passing to what he said: if children are preserved from a woman, that is, that before the purity of the body of Christ, every union is unclean. And the law commands that the high priest marry only a girl, and not take a widow (Lev. 21). If the dignity of a maiden and a widow are equal, then why is one taken and the other rejected? And the priest's widow is commanded to sit in her father's house and not know a second marriage. If a priest’s virgin sister dies, then he is commanded to do the same when burying her as when burying his father and mother, and if she is married, then he is left neglected as a stranger. He who has given birth to a wife and planted a vineyard as a generation of children is forbidden to go out to war (Deut. 20), for a woman’s servant cannot serve the army of the Lord. And from the mirrors of fasting women, as if from the purest bodies of virgins, impurities are poured into the tabernacle; and inside the sanctuary are placed both cherubim, and the atonement, and the ark of the covenant, and the table of the show, and the lamp, and the censer of the purest gold, for silver could not be allowed into the Holy of Holies. Why do I dwell on Moses, when, with a fluent and rapid dictation, I intend only to briefly touch upon the particulars and sketch only an easy outline for understanding? I will move on to Jesus the son of Nave, who was formerly called Abse, or, as more correctly stands in Hebrew, Oze, i.e. savior, for he, according to the message of Judah, saved and led the people of Israel out of Egypt and brought them into the land of promise. As soon as this Jesus came to the Jordan, the waters of marriage, which always flowed into the Law, dried up and became dry, and all the people crossed over with dry and bare feet and came to Gilgal, and there they were circumcised a second time. If we take this literally, then it makes no sense at all. For then only would there really be a second circumcision if we accepted circumcision a second time, if the cut skin grew back. And now this signifies that Jesus, having passed through the desert, circumcised the people with the knife of the Gospel and circumcised them with a stone knife, so that what was previously pictured in Moses - the child of a relatively few - was fulfilled for everyone under Jesus. But even the most circumcised parts, collected in one heap and buried and covered with earth, and the reproach of Egypt that was taken away, and the name of the place Gilgal, which means revelation, show that while the people walked uncircumcised in the wilderness, their eyes were blinded. Let's look at what follows. After the evangelical circumcision and the dedication of the twelve stones at the place of revelation, the Passover is immediately celebrated, a lamb is slain by it, and they eat the products of the Holy Land. Jesus comes out and meets him with the Prince of Power holding a sword, i.e. or showing that he stands for a circumcised people, or cutting the ties of marriage. And just as Moses was commanded, he is also commanded: take the boots from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground (Ex. 3:5). The army of the Lord was so armed with priestly trumpets that Jericho fell - in an image of how the world falls during the preaching of the Gospel. And omitting an infinite number of subjects (for I do not now intend to reveal all the secrets of the Old Testament), the five kings who formerly reigned in the land of promise and opposed the gospel army are defeated in the war with Jesus (Joshua 10). I think that this is very clear in meaning - that until the time the Lord brought his people out of Egypt and circumcised them, sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch dominated, and everything was subject to them as kings; Having attacked these kings, who fled into the cave of the body and into a dark place, Jesus killed the body itself, so that through the same thing they were killed, through which they had previously ruled. But it’s time to raise the banner of Jesus’ chastity. It is written about Moses that he had a wife. And Moses and our Lord and the Apostle are identified with the Law: they have Moses and the prophets (Luke 16:29) and: royal death from Adam to Moses and over those who have not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s crime (Rom. 5:14), and no one doubts that in both testimonies Moses means the law. So, if we read that Moses, that is, the law, had a wife, then show me that Joshua had either a wife or children, and if you can prove it, then I recognize myself as defeated. And during the division of the land of Judah, he took a truly beautiful place and dies not in the number of twenty, to which the Scripture is always unkind, since in this number Jacob was enslaved and Joseph was sold, and this number is loved by Esau, who receives some gifts in it, but in the number of ten 2, about whose praise we have often spoken, and is buried in Timnath-sar, i.e. in the most perfect principality or among the new veil, to designate crowds of virgins covered with the help of the Savior in Mount Ephraim, i.e. in the fruitful mountain, covered from the north wind, Mount Haas, which means movement: for Mount Zion, the ribs of the north, the city of the great king, always resists malice and after every trial says: my little nose did not move (Ps. 73:2). And while the burial of Jesus concludes the book called by his name, in the book of Judges he is again depicted as alive and risen, and sub ἄνακεφαλαιώσει (in abbreviation) his deeds are preached and read: “Jesus let the people go, and the children of Israel went away every man to his inheritance to possess the land” and “the people served the Lord all the days of Jesus” and etc. And then it is added: And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died an hundred and ten years. Further, Moses only saw the land of promise and could not enter “and he died in the land of Moab, and the Lord buried him in the valley of the land of Moab opposite the house of Pegor, and the man knew not his grave until that day” (Deut. 34:5-6). Let's compare the burial of both. Moses dies in the land of Moab, Jesus in the land of Judah. He is buried in the valley opposite the house of Fogor, which means reproach (because, in fact, Priapus is called Fogor in Hebrew); this one is in Mount Ephraim, to the north of which lies Mount Gaash. And the simple words of the Divine Scriptures always contain the closest meaning. Since among the Jews the birth and production of children was considered glory: “Cursed is the barren one, who had no seed in Israel, and blessed is she whose seed was in Zion and relatives in Jerusalem” - and the greatest blessing was supposed to be: your wife is like a fruitful vine in the countries of your house; your sons are like new olive trees around your table (Ps. 127:3), so his tomb appears to be laid in the valley opposite the house of the idol, which is dedicated to voluptuousness itself. But we, who fight under the leadership of Jesus, to this day do not know where Moses is buried, since we despise Fogor and all his reproaches, knowing that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And the Lord even before the flood said: My Spirit shall not abide in these men, for they are flesh (Gen. 6:3). That is why Moses is mourned after his death by the people of Israel, but Jesus, as having to live, is not mourned: because marriage ends with death, and virginity begins to be crowned after death. He brings Samson onto the stage, and does not look at the fact that once a Nazirite of the Lord, he was shaved by a woman - Samson, who, although he represents the image of the Savior by the fact that he loved a pagan harlot, as Christ loved the church of the pagans, and by the fact that at death he killed many more enemies than during life - nevertheless, he does not represent examples of marital chastity. And truly, according to the prophecy of Jacob, he, rushing swiftly with the speed of a horse, was bitten by a snake and fell on his back. And why he listed Deborah and Barakk and the wife of Aber the Kinean, I don’t understand at all, since it’s another thing to depict military leaders and put together the order of history, and another thing to designate any kind of marriage relationship, which is not visible to them at all. Further, that he prefers the faith of father Jephthah to the tears of the maiden daughter, he does this in our favor. For we also extol not so much the maidens of the world as those who are virgins for the sake of Christ; and many of the Jews reproach their father, who made an unreasonable vow and said: if by tradition you have delivered the sons of Ammon into my hand, and whatever will come out of the gates of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it will be to the Lord, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering (Judges 11:30-31). If (they say) he met a dog or a donkey, what would he do? From this they conclude that according to God’s dispensation it happened that the one who rashly made a vow in the death of his daughter should have felt the rashness of his vows. And if Samuel, who was brought up in the tabernacle, was married, then what serves here to condemn virginity? It is as if even now very many priests do not have wives. The Apostle and the bishop represent the husband of one wife, having children in all chastity (1 Tim. 3:2). At the same time, it must be borne in mind that Samuel was a Levite, and not a priest, not a high priest. Therefore, his mother made him an ephod bad, that is, a linen amice, which is actually the clothing of the Levites and, moreover, of the lowest degree (1 Samuel 2:18). Therefore, in the psalms he is mentioned not among the priests, but among those who call on the name of the Lord: Moses and Aaron among His priests and Samuel among those who call upon His name (Ps. 98:6). For Levi begat Kohath, Kohath begat Abinadab, Aminadab begat Horite, Horace begat Assir, Assir begat Gelkhan, Gelkhan begat Sub, Sub begat Tou, Tou begat Elihu, Elihu begat Jeroam, Jeroam begat Gelkhan, Gelkhan begat Samuel. And no one doubts that the priests came from the line of Aaron, Eleazar and Phinehas. And although they also had wives, they could rightly be opposed to us only if we, sharing the error of the Encratites, argued that marriage is worthy of blame; then our High Priest would not be according to the order of Melchizedek - without a father, without a mother, ἀγενεαλ ό γητος, that is, without marriage. And Samuel receives truly great fruits in his children: as much as he himself pleased God, those born by him were displeasing to the Lord. And if he contrasts Boaz and Ruth with us in order to praise bigamy, then let him know that in the Gospel and Rahab the harlot, as an image of the church, is listed among the ancestors of the Lord. Further, that he praises David, for two hundred circumcisions, who bought a wife, then let him know that he had many other wives: and Michola, the daughter of Saul, whom his father gave to another, he subsequently returned to himself, and that already in his old age he was warmed by the embrace of the Shunammite girl. I say this not to dare to reproach holy men in anything, but because it is another thing to live in the Law, and another in the Gospel. He killed Uriah the Gittite and became an adulterer with Bathsheba. And since he was a man of blood - not because of wars (as many people think), but because of murder - he is forbidden to create a church to the Lord. But if we seduce one of the lesser ones and if we tell brother Ras and look wrong, then it is better that a millstone be hung on our necks, and we will be guilty of Gehenna, and one glance of ours will be counted as adultery. He passes on to Solomon, through whom wisdom itself sang of itself: while he calls him a lover of women and dwells for a long time on praising him, I am surprised why he does not add the following from the Song of Songs: sixty are queens, and eighty concubines, and their youths are innumerable (Song. 6:8) and the following from the third book of Kings: “that he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, and others without number.” (1 Kings 11:3). It was they who turned his heart away from the Lord, and yet, before he began to have many wives and fell into the sin of the flesh, at the beginning of his reign and youth he built a church to the Lord, for everyone is judged not according to the future, but according to the present. If he likes Solomon’s examples, then he needs to no longer be bigamous or trigamous; but if he does not have seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, he will not be able to compare with his example and perform his exploits. I beg you, reader, and I often ask for the same thing - know that what I say, I say out of necessity, and that I do not blame those who lived before us under the Law, but I say that they served their times and their conditions and fulfilled the Lord’s decree: grow and multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 1:23) and - what’s more than this - imagined images of the future. But to us, to whom it is said: time has ceased to exist, so that the wives who have, as those who have not, will be, are commanded differently, and virginity is sanctified by the Savior. How unreasonably he included even Elijah and Elisha in the list of married people - this is obvious even without my words. For if John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah, and John is a virgin: then of course he came not only in the spirit of Elijah, but also in his chastity according to the flesh. Further, regarding what can be mentioned about Hezekiah, although he, due to his usual myopia, did not notice that after returning his life and extending it for fifteen years, he said: from now on I will create children - let him know that this is not in the Jewish lists, but instead it reads: the father will proclaim your power to the children. It is also not surprising if Josiah, the king of Judah, when the captivity was already close and the wrath of God was pouring out on Jerusalem, consulted with Huldah, the wife of Shallum, a prophetess: this is the rule of the Scriptures, that when holy men become impoverished, it praises women in reproach to men. And it is unnecessary to talk about Daniel, when the Jews still think that both he and the three youths were eunuchs - they think on the basis of the decree of God that Isaiah expresses to Hezekiah: “And of your sons who will be born of you they will take and make eunuchs in the king’s house” (2 Kings 20:18). Then at the end of Daniel we read: and the king spoke to Asphanez, the elder of the eunuchs, to bring in from the children of the captivity of Israel and from the tribe of the king and from the princes young men, who bear no blemish, and are good in appearance and wise in wisdom (Dan. 1: 3-4). And they (the Jews) argue that if Daniel and the three youths were chosen from the royal seed, and Scripture predicted that from the royal seed there would be eunuchs, then they were made eunuchs. And if he contrasts this with what is said in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 14), that Noah and Daniel and Job in a sinful land cannot free their sons and daughters, then one should respond that this is said presumably. For at that time there were no Noah and Job, who, as we know, lived many centuries before. And the meaning of this is this: even if such men were in a sinful land, they would not be able to free their sons and daughters, since the righteousness of the father will not deliver the son, and the sin of one will not be imputed to the other, for the soul that sins will die (Ezek. 18:4). It must also be said that Daniel, according to the testimony of his book, was captured with King Joachim at the time when Ezekiel was also taken into captivity. So how could he have children when he was still a youth, and when three years later he was accepted into the service of the king? And let no one think that he is mentioning Daniel the man, and not the youth. It came to pass, he says, in the sixth year, that is, of King Jehoiakim, in the sixth month on the fifth day of the month, that I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me (Ezek. 8:1). And on the same day it is said to him: if there be Noah and Daniel and Job (Ezek. 14:14). So Daniel was still a youth and was known to the people either as a result of the interpretation of the king’s dreams, or because of the release of Susanna and the killing of the elders. This very clearly proves that at the time when this was said about Noah, Daniel and Job, Daniel was still a youth and could not have sons and daughters whom he could free with his righteousness. Hitherto about the Law. He moves on to the Gospel and presents us with Zechariah and Elizabeth, Peter and his mother-in-law, and with his usual short-sightedness does not understand that they too should be counted among those who served the Law. For before the cross of Christ there is no Gospel, which is sanctified by His suffering and blood. Due to this position, Peter and the other apostles - I say this unnecessarily yielding to him - although they had wives, they were those whom they married at a time when they did not know the Gospel. Subsequently taken on as an apostle, they leave the marriage obligation. For when Peter, on behalf of the apostles, said to the Lord: Behold, we have left everything and died after you, the Lord answered him: Amen, I say to you, “Whoever leaves house, or parents, or brothers, or wife, or children of the kingdom for the sake of God, will receive much more in this age, and in the age to come, eternal life” (Matthew 19:27-28). And if, as proof that all the apostles had wives, he contrasts with us: food is not the imams of the power of “women or wives” to lead (for γυνὴ among the Greeks means both), like the other apostles and Cephas and the brothers of the Lord, then let him add what is in the Greek codes: food is not the imams of the power of “sisters of women or wives” to lead , from which it is clear that he said about other holy women who, according to Jewish custom, served teachers from their estate, as, we know, this was often done to the Lord himself. This is also shown by the order of speech: food is not imams, the authority to eat and drink, or sisters to lead wives (1 Cor. 9:4-5). When earlier it is said about eating and drinking and managing expenses, and here it is mentioned about women - sisters, then obviously it should not mean wives, but those, as we said, who served from their estate. This is also written in the Old Law about that Shunammite woman who used to receive Elisha and give him table and bread and lamp and so on. And of course, if in γυνα ῖ καζ we mean wives, and not women, then the addition of sisters destroys the wives and shows that they were sisters in spirit, and not spouses. However, with the exception of the Apostle Peter, it is not clearly said about the other apostles that they had wives; and when it is written about one, but is silent about the others, then we must understand that those about whom Scripture says nothing of the kind were not married. Moreover, whoever contrasted Zechariah and Elizabeth, Peter and his mother-in-law, let him know that John was born from Zechariah and Elizabeth, i.e. from marriage - a virgin, from the law - the Gospel, from marriage chastity, so that the virgin Lord is both foretold and baptized by the virgin prophet. And about Peter we can say that at the time when he believed, he had a mother-in-law, but no longer had a wife, although περι ό δοιζ 3 speaks of both his wife and daughter. But now we are all arguing about the rule (de canone). And since he addressed the court of the apostles, and said that the leaders of our piety (disciplinae) and the leaders of Christian dogma were not virgins, so that we would concede that they were in part not virgins (for this, except Peter, cannot be proven about anyone), then let him know that these were those apostles about whom Isaiah prophesies: if the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed, then Sodom for they were like Gomorrah, and they became like Gomorrah (Is. 1:9). So those who were from the Jews, the virginity left in Judaism, could not have in the Gospel. However, John, one of the disciples, about whom it is said that he was the least among the apostles, and whom faith in Christ found a virgin, remained a virgin, and for this he enjoys the greater love of the Lord and reclines on the breasts of Jesus. And what Peter, who had a wife, does not dare to ask about, asks John to ask about it. Also after the resurrection, when Mary Magdalene announced that the Lord had risen, both ran to the tomb, but John warned. And when they were on a ship and fishing on Lake Gennesaret, Jesus stood on the shore and the apostles did not know who they saw, then one virgin recognizes the virgin and says to Peter: The Lord is. Also, when Peter, having heard the determination that another would gird him and lead him where he did not want, which was what was predicted for him to suffer on the cross, said: Lord, this one, not wanting to leave John, to whom he was always attached, the Lord said to him: what is to you, come to Me. Hence the word spread between the brothers that that disciple would not die. This shows that virginity does not die, and does not wash away the impurity of marriage with the blood of martyrdom, but remains with Christ, and its dormition is a passing, not a death. And if he persistently proves that John was not a virgin and disputes that we see in virginity the reason for special love, then let him explain why he was loved more than the other apostles, if he was not a virgin? But you say the church is founded on Peter. Although in another place this is done to all the apostles and everyone receives the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the strengthening of the church is equally established on them, but out of the twelve one is chosen in order to install the head, to destroy the cause of schism (schismatis). But why was John the virgin not chosen? Preference was given to age, because Peter was older, so that still a youth and almost a youth would not be preferred to people of full age, and so that it would not seem that the good teacher, who was supposed to remove the cause of discord from the disciples and who said to them: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you (John 14:27) and also: “Whoever wants to be great among you, let him be the least of all” (Matthew 20:26), - gives a reason for hatred against the student whom loved. And so that we know that John was then a youth, church histories very clearly teach that he lived until the reign of Trajan, that is, he died in the sixty-eighth year after the passion of the Lord, which we briefly outlined in the book “On Famous Men.” Peter is an apostle, and John is an apostle, married and a virgin; but Peter is only an apostle, and John is an apostle, an evangelist, and a prophet. An apostle, for he wrote to the churches as a teacher; an evangelist, for he compiled the book of the Gospel, which, with the exception of Matthew, the others of the twelve apostles did not do; - a prophet, for on the island of Patmos, to which he was exiled by Emperor Domitian for the testimony of the Lord, he saw the Apocalypse containing endless secrets of the future. And Tertullian reports that in Rome, thrown into a barrel of boiling oil, he came out healthier and more vigorous than when he entered. But his Gospel itself is much different from others. Matthew, as if about a person, begins to write: the book of the kinship of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham; Luke begins with the priesthood of Zechariah; Mark from the prophecies of the prophet Malachi and Isaiah. The first has the face of a man, because of genealogy, the second has the face of a bull, because of the priesthood, the third has the face of a lion, because of the voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths right (Is. 40:3; Luke 3:4). And our John, like an eagle, soars to the highest and reaches to the Father himself, saying: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word. This is from time immemorial to God and so on. Virginity taught what marriage could not know, and in order to embrace a lot in short words and show how great the advantage of John and virginity is in John, the Lord entrusts a virgin mother to a virgin disciple. But we work in vain. For the enemy opposes the apostolic thought to us and says: Adam was created first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the wife was deceived into committing a crime; He will be saved for the sake of childbearing, if he continues in faith and love and in holiness with chastity (1 Tim. 2:13-15). Let's see why and where the apostle derives this idea: I want men to say prayers in every place, lifting up their holy hands without anger or hesitation (v. 8). Then, therefore, he gives the rules of life to the wives and says: in the same way, let the wives adorn themselves with molded ornaments, with shame and chastity, not in weaving, not in gold or beads, or with costly vestments, but, as befits women who promise piety, with good deeds. Let a wife learn in silence with all submission: but I do not command a wife to teach, lower than to rule over her husband, but to be in silence. (v. 9 et seq.). And so that the appointment of a woman, which assigns her to slavery to her husband, does not seem cruel, he recalls the ancient law and returns to the original proof - that Adam was created first, and then a wife from his rib, and that it was not Adam who could be seduced by the devil, but Eve, and that after the crime she was immediately subordinated to her husband and her appeal began to her husband and that she, once bound by marriage and obliged to share the fate of Eve, can atone for the ancient crime by the birth of children, but only under the condition that he raises these children in the faith and love of Christ, in holiness and chastity: for one should read not sobrietas (sobriety, prudence - Latin), as is incorrectly stated in the Latin codes, but castitas, i.e. σωφροσύνη (chastity, sanity - Latin, Greek). See how you will be refuted by this testimony and forced to attribute to virginity what you ascribed to marriage. For if a wife is saved by the birth of children and the salvation of mothers by the number of children, then why did he add: if (the children) continue in faith and love and in holiness with chastity? So the wife will be saved if she gives birth to children who will remain virgins, if she gains what she herself lost in children, and if she rewards the damage and rottenness of the root with flowers and fruits. Above, in passing, when the enemy contrasted with us the polygamous Solomon, who built the church, and answered briefly in order to go over all the objections. Now, so that he does not shout that we ignored this and other subordinate patriarchs and prophets and holy men, let us present a view of the marriage of himself, who had many wives and concubines. For no one can know better what a wife or woman is than the one who has suffered from them. So he says in Proverbs: a foolish and insolent woman is poor in bread (Proverbs 9:13). What kind of bread? Of course, the one who comes down from heaven - and immediately adds: her earthly ones perish and are found in the depths of hell (Proverbs 9:18). What kind of earthly creatures are dying there? Of course, those who follow the first Adam, who is from the earth, and not the second, who is from heaven. And again in another place: “As a worm in a tree, so an evil wife destroys her husband” (Proverbs 25:20). And if you claim that this is said about evil wives, then I will answer you briefly: what will make me doubt whether the one I marry will be good or bad? “It is better,” he says, “to live in a desert land than with a contentious and abusive wife” (Proverbs 21:9). How rare it is to find a wife without these vices - whoever got married knows. Therefore, Varius Geminus, a high speaker, said well: he who does not quarrel is celibate. It is better to live in an uncovered corner than in a common church with a slanderous woman (Proverbs 24:25). If the common house of a husband and wife excites the wife to pride and causes trouble for the husband: how much more will this happen if the wife is richer and the husband lives in her house! She begins to be not a wife, but a mistress, and if she is dissatisfied with her husband, then he needs to move. “A leak drives a man out of his house on a winter’s day; likewise does an evil woman from her own home” (Prov. 27:15). Because with constant abuse and daily grumbling he causes a leak in his house and drives him out of his premises, that is, from the church. Therefore, above, the same Solomon is commanded: “Son, do not exceed” (supereffluas), and the Apostle to the Jews: for this reason it is fitting for us to pay more attention to what we hear, lest we fall away (ne supereffluamus) 4 (Heb. 2:1). And who will keep silent about what is written in the form of a riddle: the leech had three daughters, beloved of love, and these three were not satisfied with her and the fourth was not satisfied with the saying: hell and the love of a woman and an earth not watered with water and fire do not speak: it is sufficient (Prov. 30:15-16). The leech is the devil, and the daughters of the devil, beloved by love, who cannot get enough of the blood of those they have killed - this is hell, and the love of a wife, and the dry earth, and the blazing fire. Here we are not talking about a harlot, not about an adulteress, but in general, a woman’s love is accused, which is always insatiable, which, after being extinguished, flares up again and after satisfaction is hungry again, and makes the male spirit feminine, and except for the passion with which it suffers, does not allow one to think about anything. We read something similar in the following parable: The earth shakes by three, but cannot bear the fourth: if a slave reigns, a foolish man will be filled with food, and a slave should marry her mistress, and a vile wife should marry a good husband (Prov. 30:21 et seq.). Here, too, the wife is considered among the greatest evils. If you answer - but the wife is evil, then I will tell you the same thing as I said above. And this danger is important because it serves in my favor. For the one who marries does not know whether his wife will be hated or loved. If it is hateful, then it cannot be tolerated. If she is beloved, then her love is compared to hell and dried up earth and fire. Let us move on to Ecclesiastes in order to present some evidence from it. There is a time for everything, and a time for everything under heaven: A time to give birth and a time to die: a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted (Eccl. 3:1-2). Under the Law we bore with Moses; in the Gospel we must die with Christ. In marriage we planted; Through chastity we must pluck out what is planted. A time to hug and a time to move away from hugging; a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace (Eccl. 3:5, 8). And at the same time he admonishes us not to prefer the Law to the Gospel and not to think that the purity of virginity is equal to marriage: the last word is better than the beginning, he says (Eccl. 7:9), and immediately adds: do not say that it was, for the former days were more blasphemous than these: for you did not ask about this in wisdom (v. 11), and presents the reason why the days the later are better than the first: because wisdom is good, he says, with an inheritance. For in the Law the wisdom of the flesh is followed by death that kills: in the Gospel the wisdom of the Spirit awaits an eternal inheritance. Behold, I have found this, says Ecclesiastes, one man out of thousands I have found, but I have not found a wife in all of them. Otherwise, this was obtained, even if God created the right man, “and they themselves sought evil thoughts” (Eccl. 7:28-30). He says that he has found a righteous man. Pay attention to the power of words. By man we mean both man and woman: and wives, he says, were not found in all of these. Let us read the beginning of Genesis, and we will find that both husband and wife are called Adam, that is, man. So, while we were created good and righteous by God, through our own fault we fell into a worse state, and what was righteous in us in paradise was perverted when we left paradise. If you object to this that even before the fall the sexes of man and woman were separated, and they could copulate without sin: then I will say to this: what would have happened is unknown, for we cannot know the destinies of God and, at our own discretion, predetermine His determination. The only thing that is obvious to us is that it happened - that those who were virgins in paradise copulated after being expelled from paradise. Or, if heaven accepts married life and there is no difference between a married woman and a virgin, then what prevented them from copulating in heaven before? They are expelled from paradise, and what they did not do there, they do on earth, so that immediately, from the beginning of human creation, virginity would be sanctified by paradise, and marriage by earth. Let your garments be white at all times (Eccl.9:8). The constant whiteness of clothes is the purity of virginity. In the morning we sowed our seed, and in the evening we will not stop. Having served marriage in the Law, let us serve virginity in the Gospel. I turn to the Song of Songs and show that what the enemy considers completely in favor of marriage contains the secrets of virginity. Let's listen to what the bride says before her Groom came to earth, suffered, descended into hell and was resurrected. Let us create the likeness of gold with the variegations of silver, until the king will rise to his ecstasy (Song. 1:10-11). Before the resurrection of the Lord and before the appearance of the light of the Gospel, the bride did not have gold, but the likeness of gold; and the silver that he promises to have in marriage was varied and different among widows, abstinents, and married people. Then the groom answers the bride and teaches her that the shadow of the old law has passed and the truth of the Gospel has come: Arise, come, my neighbor, my bride, for behold, winter has passed away, the rain has gone away (Song. 2:10-11). This is about the Old Testament. Then about the Gospel and virginity: having appeared on earth, the time of circumcision has come (v. 12). Doesn't it seem to you that he says the same thing as the apostle: let those who have also have wives, as if they have not (1 Cor. 7:29)? And more clearly in praise of chastity he says: the voice of the turtledove was heard in our land (Song. 2:12). The turtle dove, the purest bird, always living on high ground, is the image of the Savior. We honor physiologists (see Plin. book 10, chapter 34), and we will find that such is the property of the turtledove that if it loses a spouse, it will not unite with another - and we will understand that bigamy is not approved even by dumb birds. Then the turtledove says to the turtledove: the fig has brought forth its blossom (Song. 2:13), i.e. the commandments of the old law fell and the blossoming offspring of the Gospel gave a fragrance. Hence the apostle says: This is the fragrance of Christ (2 Cor. 2:15). Arise, come, my neighbor, my good one, my dove, come. You are my dove in the covering of stone, near the entrance: show me your face and make your voice heard by me: for your voice is sweet and your image is beautiful (Song. 2:13-14). While you veiled your face with Moses and the veil was in the Law, I did not see your face, nor did I deign to hear your voice, saying: “And if you multiply your prayers, I will not hear you” (Jer. 11:11). And now, with an open face, contemplate my glory and close yourself with a fence made of the strongest stone. Hearing this, the bride reveals the secrets of chastity: my brother to me, and I to him, a shepherd in krinah (Song. 2:16), i.e. among the purest choirs of virgins. Do you want to know what throne the truly peace-loving Solomon has and what armor bearers? Behold, the bed of Solomon, sixty mighty men surrounded him from the mighty men of Israel: all who had weapons were taught to fight: a man had his weapon on his thigh (Song. 3:7-8). Those in his retinue have a sword at their hip, like the judge Ehud ἀμφοτεροδέξιος 5) (Judges 3), who killed the fattest enemy, wholly devoted to the flesh, cutting off all lusts. I will go, he says, to Mount Humble (Song.4:6), i.e. to those who killed their bodies, and to the hill of Lebanon - to the purest hosts of virgins - “and I will say to my bride”: you are all good, my neighbor, and there is no vice in you (v. 7). Therefore, the apostle says: let me present to myself a glorious church, having no filth or vice (Eph. 5:27). Come from Lebanon, O bride, come from Lebanon: come and pass from the beginning of faith, from the head of Sanir and Aermon, from the fences of lions, from the mountains of Pardale (Song. 4:8). Lebanon - λευκασμὸς - means whiteness. Come therefore, most pure bride, of whom it is said elsewhere: Who is this white woman who ascends? and walk the path of this world - from the beginning of faith and from Sanir, which means the prong of the lamp, in relation to what we read in the psalm: the lamp of my feet is your law, and the light of my paths (Ps. 119:105), - and from Hermon, that is, dedication, and avoid the dens of lions and the mountains of leopards, which cannot change their spotted skin. Avoid, he says, the dens of lions - avoid the pride of demons, so that after you are dedicated to me, I could say to you: you have wounded my heart, my sister bride, you have wounded my heart with one from your sight, one monist of your neck (Song. 4:9). The meaning of these words is this: I do not reject marriage; You also have a left eye, which I gave for the sake of the weakness of those who cannot see correctly. But what is more pleasing to me is the right eye of virginity, which if it is blinded, then the whole body will be in darkness. And so that we do not think that he points to carnal love and physical marriage, he immediately excludes such an understanding and says: “My sister, my bride, has wounded my heart.” Where there is a sister's name, any suspicion of impure love is excluded. “How beautiful are your breasts from wine” (Song. 4:10), about which he said above: “My brother to me, and I to him; among my breasts he will rest” ( Song 2:16 ) - in the main place ἡγεμονικὸν of the heart, where the word of God dwells. “How beautiful are your breasts from wine.” What kind of wine increases the beauty of the breasts and fattens them with the milk of chastity? Of course, what the groom talks about next: drink my wine with my milk. Eat your neighbors and drink and get drunk, brothers (Song. 5:1). That is why the apostles were called drunk on new wine. With new wine (musto), he says (Acts 2), and not with old wine, for new wine is poured into new bottles, for they did not walk in oldness of the letter, but in renewal of the spirit (Rom. 7:6). This is the wine, having drunk with which young men and virgins immediately thirst for virginity and spew out the intoxication of chastity, and this prophecy of Zechariah is fulfilled, who prophesies, according to the Hebrew text, specifically about the virgins of the church: “The streets will be filled with boys and girls who play there. For what is good and what is beautiful, if not the fruit of the elect and the wine of virgins?” (Zechariah 8:5). These are the virgins about whom it is written in the forty-fourth psalm: the virgins will be brought to the king after her, her sincere ones will be brought to you, in joy and joy they will be brought to the church of the kings (Ps. 45:15-16). Then: the garden is enclosed, my sister bride, the garden is enclosed, the source is sealed (Song. 4:12). What is enclosed and sealed resembles the mother of the Lord, the mother and the virgin. Therefore, no one was laid in the new tomb of the Savior, which was hewn from the strongest rock, either before or after. And yet this ever-virgin is the mother of many virgins. For further it follows: “Your branches are a garden of pomegranates with apple fruit” (Song. 4:13). Pomegranates and apples indicate the union of all virtues in virginity. My brother is white and dark-skinned (Song. 5:10) - white in virginity, red in martyrdom. And since it is red and white, it is immediately added: its throat is sweetness, and all its desire (Song. 5:16). The virgin groom, praised by the virgin bride, mutually praises the virgin bride and says to her: thy feet are adorned in thy shoes, daughter of Aminidab (Song. 7:2), which means a people voluntarily surrendered. For virginity is voluntary, and that is why the actions of the church in the purity of chastity are praised. Now is not the place, like a commentary, to reveal all the secrets of virginity from the Song of Songs, because even this, I am sure, will pinch the nostrils of the squeamish reader. Let Isaiah now express the mystery of our hope and faith. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Immanuel (Is. 7:14). I know that Jews usually object that in Hebrew the word alma does not mean a virgin, but a young maiden. And indeed the virgin is called bethula proper, but the young maiden or maiden is called not alma, but naara. So what does alma mean? A hidden virgin, that is, not only a virgin, but also a virgin with ἐπιτάσει 6), for not every virgin is hidden and removed from an unexpected meeting with people. Finally, Rebekah in the book of Genesis, because of her extreme chastity and because in her virginity she represented the image of the church, is called alma, and not bethula, as may become obvious from the words of the youth Abraham, which he speaks in Mesopotamia: “And he said: O Lord God of my master Abraham, if you direct the way that I walk, then, behold, when I stand by a fountain of water, a virgin will come out to draw water and I will say to her: Give me a little water to drink from your waterpot, and she will say: You also drink, and I will draw for your camels: she will be the wife whom the Lord has prepared for the son of my master” (Gen. 24:42 et seq.). For in the place where it says: “the maiden who will come out to draw water” in Hebrew there is alma, that is, the hidden virgin, preserved with special vigilance by her parents. Let them show me where married people are also called by this word: I am aware of my ignorance. Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son. If virginity is not preferable to marriage, then why didn’t the Holy Spirit choose the married woman, why didn’t he choose the widow? At that time there was Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, from the tribe of Assir, renowned for her chastity and always abiding in prayer and fasting in the church of God. If only behavior and good deeds and fasting without virginity merit the coming of the Holy Spirit, then she could also be the matter of the Lord. Let's move on. “I despised you,” he says, “and despised you, O virgin daughter of Zion” (Is. 37:22). She whom he called daughter, he also called virgin, so that if you called her only daughter, you would not consider her married. This is the virgin daughter to whom it is said in another place: rejoice, you who do not bear fruit, shout and cry, you who are not sick with stomach, for many are empty children, rather than those who have husbands (Is. 54:1). This is the one about which God speaks through Jeremiah in the words: the bride will forget her beauty, and the virgin will forget her Persians (Jer. 2:32). About her, in this prophecy, a great miracle is announced, that the virgin imprisoned her husband, and the virgin’s womb contained the Father of all. “Let,” he says, “the dignity of married women and virgins be different, but what do you say to this: if a virgin and a widow are baptized and remain so, then what difference will there be between one and the other?” What we said before about Peter and John, Anna and Mary should also be valid in the present case. For if there is no difference between a virgin and a widow who are baptized, since baptism renews a person, then on this basis harlots and public women will be equal to virgins if they are baptized. For if the previous marriage does not harm the baptized widow in the least, then the former debauchery of harlots and their bodies given over for public debauchery will receive the rewards of virginity after baptism. It is another thing to unite to God the purest mind, not defiled by any memory, and another thing to remember the embrace of your husband with a shameful impulse, and what you do not do with your body, to reproduce with memory. Jeremiah, who was sanctified in the womb and known in the womb, is awarded this advantage because he was destined for the bliss of virginity. And while everyone was captured and even the vessels of the church were plundered during the invasion of the king of Babylon, he alone is free from enemies and does not know the disasters of captivity; he receives support from his enemies, and Nebuchadnezzar, who did not make any order about the Holy of Holies, gives orders to Nebuzaradan regarding Jeremiah. For this is the true temple and the Holy of Holies, which is dedicated to the Lord with the purity of virginity. And on the contrary, Ezekiel, who was held captive in Babylon, who saw the storm coming from the north and the all-delighting whirlwind, says: “My wife died towards the evening, and I did in the morning as I was commanded.” For the Lord foretold him that on that day his mouth would be opened and he would speak and be silent no more. Please note carefully: while his wife was alive, he did not have the opportunity to teach the people. His wife dies, the marriage ties are broken, and he constantly carries out his prophetic ministry without any fear. For whoever is called free is truly a slave of Christ. I do not deny that blessed are the widows who remain so after baptism; I do not diminish the merits of those who live in chastity with their husbands; but just as the latter have a greater reward from God than married women who serve the duties of marriage, so let the former graciously endure the preference of virginity for them. For if the chastity that follows the passionate lusts of the flesh elevates widows above married women, then why do they not recognize themselves as inferior to constant chastity? It is in vain, he says, that you express this, because bishops, presbyters, and deacons - husbands of one wife and having children - are appointed apostles. Just as the apostle says about virgins that he does not have the commandment of the Lord, and yet gives advice as having received mercy from the Lord, and does this in all his reasoning in order to give preference to virginity over marriage, and exhorts what he does not dare to command, so that it does not seem that he is putting a noose and imposing a burden greater than what human nature can bear: so when establishing an ecclesiastical order, since The young church was formed from pagans, and gives easier rules to those who have recently believed, so that, being afraid, they would not consider themselves unable to fulfill them. Finally, the apostles and elders from Jerusalem send a message that no more yoke will be imposed on those who have believed among the pagans, except only that they abstain from idolatry, and fornication, and blood, and strangulation; as if children and infants are given not solid food, but milk for drinking: they do not command abstinence, do not talk about virginity, do not call for fasting, do not say what is presented to the apostles in the Gospel - so that they should not have two vestments, no scrip, no copper in their belts, no staff in their hands, no shoes on their feet; and they especially do not offer it: if you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and come after Me (Matthew 19:11). For if that young man who boasted that he had fulfilled everything prescribed by the law, went away sad, because he had a lot of wealth, and the Pharisees ridiculed such a teaching of the Lord: then this is a multitude of pagans, for whom the highest virtue was not to steal the property of others, since they could no longer receive the commandments of chastity and constant abstinence - pagans to whom they were written to abstain from idols and fornication, and Among which were rumors of fornication and such fornication as does not exist even among the pagans? But the episcopal election itself serves in my favor. For (the apostle) does not say: the one who takes one wife and bears children should be elected to the bishop, but it is said: whoever has one wife and children submissive in all godliness (1 Tim. 3:2, 4; Titus 1:6). Of course, you will agree that one who gives birth to children in the bishopric cannot be a bishop. Otherwise, if he is convicted, he will not be tolerated as a husband, but will be condemned as an adulterer. Or allow priests to officiate marriages and let virgins be the same as married people: or if priests are not allowed to touch wives, then they are holy because they imitate virgin chastity. But the following also needs to be added. If a layman and every believer can pray in no other way than by abstaining from marital relations, then the priest, to whom he must always make sacrifices for the people, must always pray; and if one must always pray, then one must always deprive oneself of marriage. For even in the old law, those who made sacrifices for the people not only were not in their homes, but they also purified themselves by separating from their wives for a time, and did not drink wine and strong drink, which usually arouse lust. Married people are elected to the priesthood, I do not deny, because there are not as many virgins as there are priests needed. Is it really possible that, on the basis that the strongest must be chosen for the army, will not the weakest be accepted because of this, when everyone cannot be strong? If the army consisted only of strength, and not of soldiers, then the weakest would be excluded. Now the second and third ranks of strength are being accepted, so that the army is filled both in composition and in number. Why, you say, is it often the case that when a virgin is ordained to the priesthood, they bypass a virgin and take a married one? Perhaps because his other deeds do not correspond to virginity, or because he is considered a virgin, but is not one in reality; either his virginity is inglorious, 7 or his virginity itself gives rise to pride in him, or, arrogant only in bodily purity, he neglects other virtues: he does not look down on the poor, is too partial to money, sometimes appears with the most stern face, with raised eyebrows, a gait similar to a triumphal stretcher, insults the people, and having nothing to reproach in life, pursues with hatred only clothes and gait. Many are chosen not out of love for them, but out of hatred for another. Among very many, simplicity alone is given the electoral vote, and opposition is aroused against the intelligence and foresight of another as shortcomings. Sometimes the common people and the mob make mistakes in their judgment, and when electing priests, everyone pleases their own tastes in order to choose a primate who is not so much good as one who is similar to himself. Sometimes it happens that married people, who make up the majority of the people, sympathize with married people like themselves, and preferring a married man to a virgin, think through this they will be considered not inferior to virgins. I will say something that may offend many; but the good will not be angry with me, because their conscience will not reproach them for sin. Sometimes this happens due to the fault of bishops, who elect to the clergy not the best, but the more dexterous, and the simpler and meek ones are considered incapable; or clergy positions, as if places of earthly service, are given to relatives and acquaintances, or they obey the orders of the rich, and what is worse than this, they give the degree of clergy to those from whom they have received favors. Otherwise, if, with such an understanding of the apostle’s thoughts, there will only be married bishops; then the apostle himself should not have been a bishop, who said: I want everyone to be as I am (1 Cor. 7:7). And John will be considered unworthy of this degree, and all the virgins and abstinents with whom the monastery of the church is decorated like the most beautiful stones. Bishop, presbyter and deacon are names not of rights, but of duties. It does not say: whoever desires the episcopate desires a good degree, but it is said that he desires good deeds, because if he is placed in the highest rank, he can, if he wants, have the means to exercise the virtues. It is fitting for a bishop to be blameless (1 Tim. 3:2), so that he is not given over to any vice; one wife for a husband - if he has one wife, let him not have her; sober, or, as it is better said in Greek, awake, i.e. νηφάλεον; chaste, for this means σώφρων, adorned (ornatum) with both chastity and morality; loving strangers, so that he imitates Abraham, and accepts Christ with strangers and even among strangers. Teaching: for it is useless for him to enjoy the consciousness of virtues when he is not able to instruct the people entrusted to him; - so that he is able to both convince in the teaching and convict those who contradict. Not a drunkard, because he who is always present in the Holy of Holies and offering sacrifices must not drink wine or strong drink, for there is fornication in wine. The bishop must drink in such a way that it is not noticeable whether he has been drinking. Not a killer who would, that is, outrage the conscience of everyone; for the apostolic speech does not describe the fighter, but instructs the bishop what he should not do. Now he directly teaches what he should do. But I am meek, not envious, not a lover of money, ruling my house well, and possessing my children in obedience with all purity. Look what chastity is required in a bishop: even if his children are not chaste, then he himself cannot be a bishop and offends God with the same sin that angered Eli the high priest, who, although he punished the children, but because he did not reject them for their crimes, he fell on his back before the lamp of God went out (1 Samuel 2 and 4). Wives are also clean and so on. Chastity takes first place in every rank and gender. So you see that a bishop, presbyter and deacon are blessed not because they are bishops, or presbyters, or deacons, but if they have virtues corresponding to their names and orders. Otherwise, if the deacon is holier than his bishop, then he will be worse with Christ, because he is lower in rank. Or Deacon Stephen, who was the first to be crowned with martyrdom, in the kingdom of heaven will be less than many bishops, and Timothy and Titus, whom I do not dare to humiliate before him, so I do not dare to prefer (Acts 6-7). Just as in legions and armies there are generals, there are tribunes, there are centurions, there are slingers, and lightly armed, and ordinary soldiers, and company soldiers, and when they fight, there are no names of ranks, but only courage is required: so in this field and the struggle in which we fight against demons, it is not names that are required, but deeds, and under the leadership of the true king - Christ, the most glorious is not the one who is more honorable, but the one who who is more valiant? But you say: if everyone is a virgin, then how will the human race exist? I’ll add a couple of things to this: if everyone is widowed or abstaining from marriage, then how will the race of mortals spread? With this method - so that the other does not cease to exist - absolutely nothing will happen. For example: if everyone is a philosopher, there will be no farmers. What am I telling the farmers? - there will be no speakers, no lawyers, no teachers of other arts. If all are heads, then whose heads will be called when there are no other members? You are afraid that the whores will disappear, the adulterers will disappear if everyone lives in virginity; Are you afraid that children in cities and villages will stop crying? Every day the blood of adulterers is shed, fornication is punished, and furious lust reigns among the very laws and axes and tribunals. Do not be afraid, lest everyone become virgins: virginity is a difficult matter, and therefore rare because it is difficult: many are called, few are chosen (Matthew 20:16, 22:14); Many start, few survive. If everyone could be virgins, the Lord would never have said: He who is able to contain, let him contain (Matthew 19:12) and the apostle, admonishing him, would not have said with fear: But about virgins the commandment of the Lord is not imam (1 Cor. 7:25). Why also, you say, were reproductive members created, and why are we created by the all-wise Creator in such a way that we feel mutual passion and desire natural copulation? We are embarrassed by the delicacy of the answer and, as if between two underwater rocks and certain συμπαηγάδας (cliffs) of necessity and shame, we suffer shipwreck from here and there, either from the side of shame, or from the side of accusation. If we respond to objections, we are covered with shame; if shame keeps us silent, it will seem as if we are retreating and giving the enemy the right to run wild. However, it is better to fight, as they say, with closed eyes like andabats, than not to reflect with the shield of truth the spears directed against it. I can precisely say: just as the back part of the body and the passage through which gastric excrement is ejected are removed from the eyes and placed, as it were, behind the back, so the abdominal organ was created by God for the eruption of moisture and drink, with which the veins of the body are soldered. But since the very organs, the structure of the generative parts, which are different for us and for women, and the receptacles of the uterus, created for receiving and warming the fetus, indicate a difference in sex, then I will briefly answer this: therefore, we should never restrain ourselves from lust, so as not to carry these members in vain: because why would a husband abstain from his wife, why would a widow remain chaste, if we were born for this only to live? bestial? Or what harm will it do to me if another copulates with my wife? For just as it is the work of chewing the teeth and sending what is chewed into the stomach, the one who gives my wife bread does not commit a crime: so if the task of the generative organs is to constantly use their nature, then let the strength of another replenish my weakness, and let voluptuousness with everyone I meet extinguish, so to speak, the inflamed lust of my wife. What does the apostle want when he urges abstinence if it is contrary to nature? What does the Lord himself want, who teaches about the difference between eunuchs? Yes, the apostle, who calls us to our chastity, must listen patiently: why do you bear a penis, O Paul? Why do you differ from the female sex in having a beard, hair, and a different arrangement of organs? Why don’t you have swollen nipples, enlarged kidneys, narrow breasts? Why do you have a rougher voice, a harsher reprimand, thicker eyebrows? It is in vain that you have all these qualities of men if you do not take advantage of the embraces of women. I was forced to say something and become unreasonable, but you forced me to dare to say it. Our Lord and Savior, who, being in the image of God, deigned to take the form of a servant, being obedient to the Father even to the point of death, death on the cross - what necessity did he have to be born in these members that he did not have to use? He, of course, was circumcised in order to show his gender. Why did He castrate John, the apostle and Baptist, with love for himself, whom he determined to be born men? So we who believe in Christ must also follow the examples of Christ. And although we knew Him in the flesh, we no longer knew Him in the flesh. Of course, in the resurrection the nature of bodies will be the same as we now use, although glorified. For after hell the Savior had so much the same body in which he was crucified that he showed his hands pierced by nails and a wound in his side. Further, if He entered through locked doors, which the nature of human bodies does not allow, then we therefore deny that both Peter and the Lord had true bodies, since they walked on water, which is contrary to nature. In the resurrection of the dead they will not marry or commit sexual intercourse, “but will be like angels” (Matthew 22:30) As others will subsequently be in heaven, the virgins began to be on earth. If we are promised to be like the angels (and there is no difference in gender between angels), then either we will be without sex, like the angels, or, as is undoubtedly confirmed, having been resurrected in a special field, we will not have sexual relations. But then we conduct business with arguments and want to counter the opponent’s objections with skillful answers? The ancient mimoidosha was all new (2 Cor. 5:17). I will go through the thoughts of the apostles and, just as I added brief interpretations to the testimonies of Solomon for ease of understanding, so now I will set out the instructions on Christian chastity and abstinence, and from many testimonies I will make it seem like one whole, so that in it I will not omit anything related to chastity, and at the same time avoid tediousness from excessive prolongation. The Apostle Paul, among other things, writes to the Romans: Because then you bore fruit, of which you are now ashamed; death is death. Now having been freed from sin, having become enslaved to God, have your fruit unto holiness, and at the end eternal life (Rom. 6:21-22). I think that the end of marriage is death; and the fruit of holiness, which relates either to virginity or to abstinence, is rewarded with eternal life. And then: by the same token, my brethren, you also died in the law of the body of Christ, so that you were born again, raised from the dead, so that we may bear fruit for God. Whenever we were in the flesh, the passions of sin, even the law, acted in our lives, with the fruit of creating death. Now we have been abolished from the law, which we follow, so that we work in renewal of the spirit, and not in old age of writing (Rom. 7:4 et seq.). When, he says, we were in the flesh, and not in the renewal of the spirit, but in the old age of writing, we did what pertained to the flesh and bore fruit for death. And now, since we have died to the law through the body of Christ, we must bear fruit to God in order to belong to Him who rose from the dead. And in another place, having said in advance: We know that the law is spiritual (Rom. 7:14), and after a lengthy discussion about the violence of the flesh, that it often prompts us to do what we do not want, at the end he added: I am a damned man who will deliver me from the body of this death; the grace of God Jesus Christ our Lord (ibid., 24). And again: in the same way, I myself work with my mind the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin (ibid., 25). And again: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh. The law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus freed me from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:1-2). And further he teaches more clearly that Christians do not walk in the flesh, but in the Spirit, saying: For those who are in the flesh, they are wise in the flesh; and others like the spirit, spiritual. For carnal wisdom, there is death; and spiritual wisdom, life and peace. For the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God: for it does not submit to the law of God, for it can do less. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are in the flesh, but in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God lives in you, and so on to a certain place where he says: Therefore, brothers, we must not be flesh, but live according to the flesh. Even if you live according to the flesh, you are about to die; If you put to death the deeds of the flesh with the spirit, you will live. For the little ones are led by the Spirit of God, and these are the sons of God (Rom. 8:5-14). If the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God, then I think that those who bear the responsibilities of marriage love the wisdom of the flesh and are in the flesh. Distracting from it and drawing to the spirit, the apostle then says: I pray to you, brethren, by the mercy of God, present in your body a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, your verbal service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, as you may be tempted, that this is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For by the grace given to me, I say that everyone who is in you should not philosophize any more than it ought to philosophize; but to philosophize in chastity, - not “in sobriety,” as it is read incorrectly in the Latin codes, but to philosophize, he says, in chastity: because in Greek it stands ἐις τὸ σωφρονεῖν (Rom. 12:1-3). Let us consider the apostle's thought. Be transformed, he says, by the renewing of your mind, so that you may be tempted, that the will of God is good, and acceptable, and perfect. The meaning of what was said is this. God allows marriage, allows a second marriage, and when it turns out to be necessary, He prefers a third marriage to adultery; but we, who must present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, our reasonable service, must pay our attention not to what God allows, but to what He wants, in order to recognize what is good, acceptable and perfect in relation to the will of God. So, what He allows is neither good, nor acceptable, nor perfect. And he gives reasons why he advises this: knowing the time, as if it is already time for us to rise from sleep. Now salvation is closer to us than when we believed. The night will surely pass, and the day will draw near. And in the end: put on our Lord Jesus Christ, and do not please the flesh through lust (Rom. 13:11-12, 14). The other is the will of God, the other is indulgence. That is why in the Epistle to the Corinthians he says: I, brothers, cannot say to you that you are spiritual, but that you are carnal, like a child in Christ. We gave you milk to drink, not junk food; for not at the most, but below you can still now. Moreover, we are fleshly (1 Cor. 3:1-3). He who is spiritual and does not accept the things of the Spirit of God (because they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand, since they should be judged spiritually), feeds not on the broth of perfect purity, but on the rough milk of marriage. Just as death came through man, so through man came the resurrection of the dead. Just as in Adam we all die, so in Christ we all come to life. We served the ancient Adam in the Law: let us serve the new Adam in the Gospel. For the first man Adam was created into a living soul, and the last Adam into a life-giving spirit. The first man from the earth is ringed; the second man is the Lord from heaven. Jacob is the ringed, so are the rings; and yakov heavenly, tatsy and celestial. And just as we have put on the image of earth, let us also be clothed in the image of heaven. But I say this, brethren, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but corruption inherits incorruption (1 Cor. 15:47-50). This is as clear as it could be stated. Flesh and blood, he says, cannot inherit the kingdom of God; below corruption is incorruptibility. If corruption refers to every copulation, and incorruption is an attribute of purity, then marriage cannot inherit the rewards of chastity. We know that even if our earthly church of the body is destroyed, the imams are a creation from God, a church not made by hands, eternal in heaven. For this we sigh; we desire to be clothed in our heavenly dwelling. For we desire to leave the body and live with Christ; Likewise, for those who strive, whether in the body or outside the body, God is well-pleasing (2 Cor. 5:1 et seq.). And in order to indicate more fully what he wants us to be, he teaches in another place, saying: For I have betrothed you to one husband to present a pure virgin to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2). If you wanted to apply this to the entire church, and among the betrothed we mean here both married and remarried, and widows and virgins: and then it will be in our favor. For by inviting everyone to chastity and the reward of virginity, he shows that virginity is superior in all respects. And again to the Galatians he says: by the works of the law all flesh will not be justified (Gal. 2:16). Marriage also belongs to the matters of the law; why in it those who have no sons are reproached. If it is also allowed in the Gospel, then it is another matter to give in to weakness, and another thing is to promise rewards for virtues. I will also say to my marriage petitioners, who, after a chaste life and long-term abstinence, begin to have a lust for copulation and flirt in the likeness of beasts: and you are so foolish that, having begun in the spirit, you are now being finished in the flesh (Gal. 3:3), and have you allowed yourself to suffer this without any reason? When the apostle loosens the bonds of self-control for some and lets down the bridle of those who run, he does this for the sake of the weakness of the flesh. Writing against this, he says: walk in the Spirit, and do not commit carnal lusts. The flesh lusts after the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. ( Gal.5:16–17 ). There is no need to talk now about the works of the flesh: it would be long, and anyone who wishes can easily glean (related to this) from the epistle of the apostle. I will only speak about the spirit, the fruits of which are love, joy, peace, generosity, benevolence, kindness, faith, meekness, self-control. All spiritual virtues are supported and covered by abstinence, like the firmest foundation and the highest point of the roof. What contradicts this is not law. And those who are like Christ are crucified in the flesh with passions and lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:24–25). Why, having crucified the flesh and its passions and lusts with Christ, do we again want to do what belongs to the flesh? For as a man sows, that will he also reap. Sow to your flesh, from the flesh you will reap corruption; But whoever sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit he will reap eternal life (Gal.6:7-8). I believe that he who has a wife, as long as he turns to her (so that Satan does not tempt him), sows to the flesh, and not to the spirit. But whoever sows to the flesh (I say not I, but the apostle) will reap corruption. God the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless before Him. We walked in the lusts of the flesh, doing its will and the will of our thoughts, and we were children of wrath, like other people. Now He has raised us up and seated us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that after the first life we ​​put aside the old man, which is decaying because of attachment to error, and let this blessing be extended to us, which thus ends the mysterious letter to the Ephesians: grace be with all of you who love the Lord in incorruption (Eph. 6:24). Our life is in heaven; Therefore we look for a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humility, so that he may be conformed to the body of his glory (Phil. 3:20-21). Whatever is true, whatever is chaste, whatever is righteous, whatever pertains to purity, let us commit ourselves to that, and follow that. Christ in His body reconciled us to God the Father by death, presented us holy and blameless and blameless before Him, in Him we were circumcised by a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, but by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried in His baptism, in which we were resurrected. So, if we have been resurrected with Christ, let us seek the things above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God, let us philosophize about the things above, and not about what is on earth. For we have died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. For when Christ, our life, appears, then we also will appear with Him in glory (Col. 2:12, 3:1ff.). No one, being a warrior for God, indulges in worldly affairs in order to be pleasing to him who has chosen him (2 Tim. 2:4). For the grace of God the Savior has appeared to all men, teaching us that, having rejected ungodliness and worldly lusts, we may live chastely and righteously and godly in this present world (Titus 2:11-12). I would not have enough time if I wanted to quote from the Apostle all the commandments concerning purity. This is what the Lord says to the apostles about them: the imam has many more words to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth (John 16:12–13). Immediately after the cross of Christ, in the Acts of the Apostles, one house of Philip the Evangelist produced a quartet of virgin daughters, so that in Caesarea, where the church of the pagans was consecrated in the person of Cornelius the centurion, examples of virgin girls could also be presented. And although the Lord said in the Gospel: the law and the prophets were before John (Luke 16:16), it is said about these that they, since they were virgins, prophesied even after John (Acts 21:9). For, shining with the splendor of virginity, they could not be subject to the law of the Old Testament. Let's move on to Jacob, who was called the brother of the Lord: he was so holy, so righteous and constantly virginal that the Jewish historian Joseph represents the destruction of Jerusalem as a consequence of his murder 8 . This first bishop of the Jerusalem church, made up of believing Jews, to whom Paul traveled with Titus and Barnabas, says in his letter: do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every gift is good, and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights; with Him there is no change or alteration. For He desired to give birth to us by the word of truth, so that by His creation we may be a firstfruits (James 1:16–18). The virgin teaches virginity in a mysterious way. Every perfect gift comes down from above, where there is no marriage, and comes down not from anyone, but from the Father of lights, who says to the apostles: you are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). With Him there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile, and the canopy that lay over the law does not cover those who believed among the Gentiles; but He gave birth to us by the word, and by the word - truth: for the shadow, the image, a certain form of truth alone, passed away in the law - He begot us, that we might be the firstfruits of His creation. And just as he himself, being the firstborn from the dead, raised in himself all the dead, so also being a virgin, he sanctified in his virginity the firstfruits of his virgins. Let's see what Peter thinks about the calling of the Gentiles. Blessed, he says, is the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to the multitude of His mercy begot us for the hope of life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, for an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and unfading, reserved in heaven for your sake, who by the power of God are preserved by nature through faith, for a salvation ready to appear at the last time (1 Peter 1:3-5). Where an incorruptible, undefiled, unfading inheritance is preached, prepared in heaven, reserved for the last time, and the hope of eternal life, when they will neither marry nor violate, there the advantages of virginity are depicted in other words. For he teaches the same thing in further words: Therefore, having your loins girded up, being completely sober, trust in the grace brought to you by the revelation of Jesus Christ. As children of obedience, do not conform to the first ignorant desires of yours, but, according to the Holy One who called you, you yourself will be holy in all your life. It is written beforehand: Be holy, for I am holy. – For you were not redeemed with corruptible silver or gold, but with the precious blood of the lamb without blemish of Jesus Christ, may our souls be purified into the obedience of the truth, having been generated not from corruptible union, but from incorruption, by the word of the living God and abiding forever, and like living stone, that we may be built into a spiritual church, holy holiness, offering spiritual sacrifices through Christ our Lord (1 Peter 1:13–23, 2:5). For we are a chosen race, a royal sanctification, a holy tongue, a people of gain (1 Pet. 2:9). Christ died for us in the flesh. Let us arm ourselves with the same life as Christ: having already suffered in the flesh, having ceased from sin, it is not for the lust of man, but for the will of God to live the rest of the time in the flesh. For we are satisfied with the passing of our lives, walking in uncleanness, in lusts and other vices (1 Pet. 4:1-3). He gave us great and precious promises of virginity, so that through it we might become partakers of the divine nature, having fled the lustful aphids that are in the world (2 Pet. 1:4). The message of the Lord is to deliver the pious from adversity, but to watch over the unrighteous for the day of judgment for torment, especially those who follow the carnal lust of defilement, and about the dominion of those who are careless, arrogant and impudent. For these, like beasts, are unreasonable, inclined to the belly and lust, blaspheming, they decay in their corruption, accepting unjust bribes, imagining sweetness, untruth, filth and vice, and they think of nothing else except lusts. Their eyes are full of adultery and insatiable lust, and they deceive souls that are not established in the love of Christ. They speak arrogant words, and the unlearned are easily ensnared in carnal lusts, who promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For anyone who is overcome by passion is the one who works. If we have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ, we are again overcome by the same thing with which we were overcome before, being the last pot of the first. It would be better for them not to know the path of righteousness than for those who have known to go back and abandon the holy commandment handed down to them. If a true parable happened to them: a dog returns to its vomit, and a pig washes itself in the mud of a swamp (2 Pet. 2:9-22). I did not want to expound the entire passage of Petrov’s second epistle, but showed only that the prophecy of the Holy Spirit announced both the teachers and the heresy of the present time. Finally, he points to them more clearly, saying: For in the last days deceiving mockers will come, walking after their own lusts, and so on (2 Pet. 3:3). The apostolic speech depicted Jovinian speaking pompously, uttering arrogant words, promising freedom in heaven, while he himself was a slave to vices and intemperance - a dog returning to his vomit. Although he pretends to be a monk, if after a dirty tunic, and bare feet, rye bread and drinking water, he cares about neat clothes, soft skin, sweet wine and exquisitely prepared meats, about the morals of Apicius and Paxamus, about baths, kitchens and taverns: then it is obvious that he prefers earth to heaven, vices to virtues, the womb of Christ, and the purple color of the latter considers the kingdom heavenly. However, let this monk, handsome, fat, dapper, whitewashed, and always acting as a groom, marry to prove that virginity is equal to marriage; and if he does not marry, then in vain he arms himself against us in words, although he agrees with us in deeds. John also says according to the same thing: do not love the world, neither those who are in the world. If anyone loves the world, there is no loving Father in it. For everything that is in the world, carnal lust, and the lust of desire, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from this world. And the world passes away, and so does its lust. But he who does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:15–17). I write to you a new commandment, which is truly in Christ and in you: for darkness is passing away, and the light is already shining (ibid., v. 8). And again: beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not revealed that we shall be. We will know that when He appears, we will be like Him: for we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope, Nan, cleanses himself, as He is pure. And this is the perfection of our love, if we have boldness against the day of judgment, so that as He is, so we may be in this world (1 John 3:2-3, 17). The Epistle of Jude also indicates something similar: hating the garment that is defiled by the flesh (Jude 1:23). Let us begin to read the Apocalypse of John, and we will meet there the Lamb on Mount Zion, and with him one hundred and forty-four thousand marked, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads, who sing a new song, and no one can sing this song except them, redeemed from the earth. They are the ones who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes: for they were purchased from men, as firstborn to God and to the Lamb, and no flattery was found in their mouth, and they were without blemish (Rev. 14:1-5). From each of the tribes, excluding the tribe of Dan, which is replaced by the tribe of Levi (Manasseh?), twelve thousand virgins are required who have not defiled themselves with women. And lest we think that we are talking about those who had no dealings with harlots, he immediately adds: for they remained virgins. By this he shows that everyone who has not remained virgins, in comparison with the purest and angelic chastity and with our Lord Jesus Christ himself, is defiled. It is they who sing a new song, which no one but a virgin can sing. They are the firstborn of God and the Lamb, and without blemish. If virgins are the firstborn of God, then widows and those who abstain in the marital state will be after the firstborn, that is, in the second and third degree, and a corrupt people cannot be saved until they have offered such sacrifices of chastity to God and have been reconciled with the immaculate Lamb by these purest sacrifices. It would be endless to explain the Gospel mystery of the ten virgins, the five wise men and the five holy fools. In this case, I will only say that just as virginity alone does not save without other deeds, so all deeds without virginity, purity, abstinence, chastity are not perfect. In this regard, we cannot be at all hampered by the objection opposed by the enemy that the Lord was in Cana of Galilee and celebrated the wedding celebration by turning water into wine. I will give the shortest answer that He, who was circumcised on the eighth day and for whom on the day of atonement a pair of turtle doves and two chicks of doves were offered, before His suffering approved, among other things, the custom of the Jews, so as not to give them a legal reason to kill themselves, as destroying the law and condemning nature. However, this is also for our sake. For, having come to marriage only once, He teaches to marry only once. And this could harm virginity only if we did not place marriage below virginity, and the chastity of widowhood on the third level. At the present time, when heretics have begun to condemn marriage and despise God’s creation, we willingly listen to praiseworthy reviews of marriage. For the Church does not condemn marriage, but does not give it first place, and does not reject it, but uses it wisely, knowing, as we said above, that in a large house there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, and some of them are for honor, others not for honor, and that he who has purified himself will be an honorable vessel and prepared for every needful good deed. We have presented quite enough examples of Christian chastity and angelic virginity from divine books. But from the explanations of the enemy, I saw that he calls us to the court of worldly wisdom, claiming that the world has never approved of this kind of life, and our religion has introduced a new dogma, contrary to nature. Therefore, I will briefly run through the Greek, Latin and barbarian narratives, and show that virginity has always been considered the height of chastity. Fables say about the maiden Atalanta Kalidonich, who spent all her time hunting and in the forests, that she loved not the swollen female womb and not the abomination of conceptions, but mobile and pure valor. The famous poet 9 also described Harpalia, the Thracian maiden, and Camilla, the queen of the Volscians. Turnus, to whom the latter came to the aid, wanting to praise her, could not say anything more than to call her a maiden: O maiden beauty of Italy 10! They also write that the famous Chalchiecus Leon, an ever-virgin, freed her fatherland from a pestilence by her voluntary death, and the blood of the maiden Iphigenia appeased the contrary winds. And what can we say about the Sibyls, Erythraeus, Cumanus and eight others (for Varro believes that there were ten of them), for whom virginity was a distinction, and the reward of virginity was the ability to predict? – If in the Aeolian dialect the Sibyl is called θεοβούλη: then it is rightly written that the advice of God is known only to virginity. We also read that Cassandra and Chrysea, the prophets of Apollo and Juno, were virgins. There were countless priestesses of Diana Tauride and Vesta. One of them, Minucia, on suspicion of fornication, was buried alive in the ground: a punishment, I believe, unfair, if the violation of virginity was not considered a great crime. The reverence with which the Roman people always treated virgins is clearly evident from the fact that consuls, emperors, riding in ceremonial chariots, with trophies of victory over the peoples, and dignitaries of all ranks, usually made way for them. Claudia, the Vestal virgin, when she came under suspicion of fornication, and meanwhile the image of Cybele stopped aground in the Tiber, as proof of her chastity, they say, led a ship on her belt that thousands of people could not steal. It would, however, be better to deal with her, says the paternal uncle of the poet Lucan (i.e. Seneca, Nero’s mentor), if what happened simply served to decorate undoubted chastity, and not to protect the questioned. And this is not surprising in relation to people: because the pagan delusion even invented virgin goddesses - Minerva and Diana, and placed the Virgin between the twelve heavenly constellations, by which the world is thought to revolve. The marriage was dealt a great insult when the wife and husband were not squeezed even between Scorpios and Centaurs, Cancers, Pisces and Capricorns. Thirty Athenian tyrants, having killed Pheidon at a feast, ordered his virgin daughters to appear to them, to be naked according to the custom of harlots, and to dance with shameless movements on the floor, stained with their father’s blood. For a short time they hid their sorrow; but when they saw the drunken people feasting, they came out as if out of natural need, and, embracing each other, threw themselves into the well in order to save their virginity by death. The virgin daughter of Demation, the head of the Areopagites, having heard about the death of her fiancé Leosthenes, who had instigated the Lamian war, killed herself, claiming that although she remained chaste in body, nevertheless, if she had been forced to take another, she would have taken him as a second (husband): because in her soul she had already been married to the first. The Spartans and the Messenians were in such friendship with each other for a long time that they sent virgins to each other to perform some sacred rites. When at one time the Messenians attempted to dishonor fifty Lacedaemonian virgins, out of so many of them not one agreed to fornication, and all died with the greatest willingness for chastity. Because of this, a cruel and very long war arose, and after a long time Mamercia was destroyed. Aristoclides, the tyrant of Orchomen, fell in love with the maiden of Stymphalus; but when her father was killed, she fled to the church of Diana, grabbed hold of her statue, and since she could not be torn off by force, she was stabbed to death in the same place. On the occasion of her murder, all of Arcadia was struck with grief to such an extent that it started a nationwide war and took revenge on the murder of the maiden. When the Lacedaemonians were defeated and one night they were celebrating a festival called Hyacinthia, Aristomenes of Messenia, a most truthful man, kidnapped fifteen virgins from the choirs participating in the festival, and leaving with increased speed all night, crossed the Spartan borders. But when his companions wanted to rape them, he first exhorted as much as he could not to do this, and finally killed some of those who disobeyed; whereby fear curbed the rest. The girls were later ransomed by relatives; but seeing Aristomenes on trial for murder, they did not return to their fatherland until, falling at the feet of the judges, they saw the defender of their chastity freed. What words can be used to praise the daughters of Skedaz in Leuctra Veotia, about whom a story has been preserved that, in the absence of their father, they received as guests two young men who were passing by. These, having indulged too much in wine, raped the maidens at night; and the latter, not wanting to survive their lost chastity, died from mutually inflicted wounds. It would be unfair to remain silent about the Locridian virgins, who, according to custom, were sent to Ilion for almost a thousand years, and yet not one gave any reason for bad rumors and gossip about violation of chastity. Who is able to pass by in silence the seven Milesian virgins, who, during the general devastation of the invasion of the Gauls, so as not to suffer anything indecent from their enemies, sought salvation from dishonor in death, leaving to all the virgins their example of caring in spiritual purity more about chastity than about life. Nicanor, having defeated and destroyed Thebes, was overcome by love for a captive maiden. Seeking marriage with her and voluntary embraces, i.e. so that the captive herself would desire this, he was convinced that for chaste souls virginity is more valuable than the kingdom: the crying and sobbing lover saw in his power the murdered woman with his own hands. Greek writers also tell about another Theban maiden, raped by a Macedonian enemy, that she hid her grief for some time, and then strangled the violator of her virginity during his sleep, and killed herself with a sword, because she did not want to live after losing her purity, nor to die before avenging herself. Among the gymnosophists of India, the opinion is conveyed as a real event that Buddha, the founder of their faith, was born from her side by a virgin. And it is not surprising that the barbarians think so, if the most learned Greece imagined that Minerva was born from the head of Jupiter, and Bacchus from his side. Likewise, Speusippus, the son of Plato's sister, Clearchus, in praise of Plato, and Anaxilides in the second book of philosophy, say that Periccia, Plato's mother, was brought into a dreamy state by Apollo, and they think that the head of wisdom could appear only by being born of a virgin. And Timaeus writes about the virgin daughter of Pythagoras that she ruled the choir of virgins and instructed them in the rules of purity. It is said about Diodorus Socrates that he had five dialectician daughters, famous for their chastity, about whom Philopus, the teacher of Carneades, also writes a detailed history. And so that Roman power does not reproach us with the birth of the Lord Savior from a Virgin, let us recall that the founders of the city and its people are considered born of the Trojan Virgin and Mars. I said this while running through various stories, and quickly, about worldly virgins. I will move on to married women who did not want to outlive their dead or murdered husbands, so as not to be forced to enter into a second cohabitation, and who amazingly loved their only husbands; we must know that second marriage was not approved even among the pagans. Dido, Pygmalion's sister, having collected a large amount of gold and silver, sailed to Africa and founded the city of Carthage there; when the Libyan king Yarba sought marriage with her, she postponed the marriage for some time until she built a city. And soon after, having built a fire in honor of her ex-husband Sihei, she would rather burn herself than get married. An honest woman founded Carthage, and with the glory of honesty this city ended its existence. When the city was taken and set on fire, Hasdrubal's wife, seeing that she was about to be taken prisoner by the Romans, grabbed her little sons in both hands and ran into her set fire to her house. And what can we say about the wife of Nicerates, who, not allowing her husband to be insulted, plotted her own death, so as not to serve the lust of the thirty tyrants installed by Lysander over the defeated Athenians? They say that Artemisa, the wife of Mausoleum, was famous for her chastity. She was the queen of Caria and the subject of praise by noble poets and historians; but she acquired special fame because she always loved her deceased husband as if he were alive and erected a tombstone monument of such amazing size that to this day all precious tombstones are called mausoleums after his name. Teuta, queen of the Illyrians, who for a long time ruled the bravest men and often amazed the Romans, was also considered a miracle of purity. Indians, like almost all barbarians, have many wives. They have a law according to which the most beloved of wives is burned along with her deceased husband. They, therefore, argue among themselves for the love of their husband, and those arguing see for themselves the highest triumph and proof of purity in being recognized as worthy of death. After which the winner, in ordinary clothes and jewelry, lies down next to the corpse, hugs it and covers it with kisses, neglecting the fire because of the glory of chastity. I think that the person dying like this does not want a second marriage. The famous Socratic Alcibiades, when the Athenians were defeated, fled to Pharnabazus. The latter, having accepted payment from the leader of the Lacedaemonians, Lysander, ordered him to be killed. When the head of the murdered man was cut off and sent to Lysander as proof of the murder, the rest of the body lay unburied. And only the concubine, contrary to the prohibition of the cruelest enemy, in a foreign land and in view of the threatening danger, performed the burial ceremony, being ready to die for the deceased whom she loved alive. Let famous wives, at least Christian wives, imitate the fidelity of the concubine, and do in freedom what the captive observed. Straton, the king of Sidon, wanted to kill himself with his own hands, so as not to be an object of ridicule for the approaching Persians, the treaty with whom he had neglected because of the alliance with the king of Egypt, but he restrained himself out of cowardice, and, examining the grabbed sword from all sides, fearfully awaited the arrival of enemies. Seeing that he was about to be captured any minute, his wife snatched the sword and pierced his side; and when the corpse was, according to custom, prepared for burial, she fell on it, killing herself, so that after the virgin union she would not be forced to copulate with another. Xenophon, in his description of the childhood of Cyrus the Elder, says that, having killed her husband Abradotus, his wife Panthea, who passionately loved him, sat down next to the tortured body, and, hitting her chest, poured her blood on her husband’s wounds. The wife, whom her husband showed naked to his friend without her knowledge, considered it fair to kill the king. She believed that he did not love her if he could show her to another. Radogunda, daughter of Darius, after the death of her husband, killed her nurse, who convinced her to enter into a second marriage. Fables tell of Alceste, who died voluntarily for Admetus, and Penelope's chastity is the subject of Homer's poems. The poets also sing of Laodamia, who did not want to survive Protesilaus, who was killed at Troy. I will move on to the Roman women and, first of all, I will point to Lucretia, who, not wanting to survive her broken chastity, atoned for the dishonor of her body with blood. Duilius, the first to celebrate victory in a naval battle in Rome, married the virgin Vilia, who was distinguished by such chastity that she served as an example even in that age when immodesty was a deformity and not a vice. Already an old man and with a trembling body, during one quarrel he heard a reproach that his breath stank, and returned home saddened. When asked by his wife why she never advised him to cure himself of this deficiency, the latter replied: I would have done it if I had not thought that all husbands also had bad breath. A modest and noble woman in any case deserves praise, whether she did not know about her husband’s shortcomings or patiently endured it, as well as for the fact that the husband learned about his physical defect due not to the wife’s disgust, but to the slander of the enemy. Probably this cannot be said by someone who married her second husband. When Marcia, the youngest daughter of Cato, was asked why, having lost her husband, she did not marry again, she answered that she did not find a husband who would desire her more than what belonged to her. With these words she showed that in wives they usually value wealth more than chastity, and that many marry not out of love, but out of convenience. A good marriage, indeed, is one that is arranged out of greed for money... She, when she was mourning her husband and the noble wives asked what day would be the last day of her mourning, answered: the same as life. I believe that the one who so strived for her absent husband did not think about a second marriage. Brutus married Portia the virgin, and Cato married Marcia the virgin. But Marcia passed from Hortensius to Cato and back, and Marcia could live without Cato; Portia could not live without Brutus. This is because women are more attached to single husbands, and ignorance of anything else seals the union with friendly condescension. When a relative urged Annia to marry her second husband (since she was both young and pretty), she answered: I will never do this. If I find a good husband, I will be afraid of losing, which I do not want; and if evil, what is the need, after good, to endure evil? When, in the presence of the younger Portia, a certain well-behaved woman who had a second husband was praised, she replied: a happy and chaste noble woman will never marry more than once. The eldest Marcella, when asked by her mother whether she was happy that she got married, answered: so much that I don’t want to anymore. Valeria, sister of Messal, having lost her husband Servius, did not want to marry anyone. When they asked her why she did this, she answered that her husband Servius was always alive for her. I feel that in this list of women I have said much more than the custom of giving examples allows, and the learned reader can rightfully reproach me for this. But what will you do when the women of our time flaunt to me the authority of the apostle, and even before the burial of the first husband they chant the commandments about second marriage? If they neglect chaste Christian fidelity, let them learn purity at least from the pagans. We offer a precious book on marriage by Theophrastus, in which he explores whether a wise husband can marry. Having determined that a wise man can then marry if the wife is beautiful, well-behaved, has honest parents, and he himself is healthy and rich, he immediately adds: “but all this is rarely found together in marriage. So a wise man should not marry. First of all, this would hinder the pursuit of philosophy; no one can serve books and wife equally. A wife needs a lot for her needs: precious clothes, gold, expensive stones, money, maids, various junk, stretchers and gilded chariots. Then, for whole nights, chatty complaints: such and such appears into society better dressed; everyone treats the other with respect; I, poor thing, am despised in the company of women. Why did you look at your neighbor? What did you talk about with the maid? What did you bring when returning from the forum? We cannot have a friend, nor a buddy. Self-hatred is suspected of loving another. If there were a most learned mentor in any city, you couldn’t leave your wife, you couldn’t go with your knapsack. It is difficult to feed the poor; living with a rich man is torture. Add that in relation to your wife there is no choice, but you must have one, whichever happens. Whether she is angry, stupid, obscene, arrogant, smelly, or has any other flaw, we will find out about all this after marriage. A horse, a donkey, an ox, the cheapest thing, as well as clothes, a saucepan, a wooden chair, an earthenware jug, are not bought before they are tried; only the wife is not subject to inspection, lest she become disgusted before they take her. You must always look her in the face and praise her beauty: if you look at another, you will think that you don’t like her. It is necessary to call her mistress, celebrate her birthday, swear by her health, in order to express by this the desire to live long for her; honor, then, her nurse and nurse, her trusted slave and adopted son, her handsome footman and curly-haired steward, and the eunuch condemned to long and safe lust, under whose names adulterers hide. Whoever she loves must love against her will. If you cede control of the whole house to her, you yourself will have to serve her. If you leave something at your own disposal, she will think that you do not have confidence in her, and then hatred and quarrels will appear, and if you do not come to your senses soon, she will poison her. If you let in old women, fortune tellers, soothsayers, dealers in precious stones and silk fabrics, fear for your chastity; If you don’t allow them, you will offend them with suspicion. And what is the use of the most careful guarding, if a dissolute wife cannot be protected, and a chaste one should not be guarded? Bad fear is the compulsion to cleanliness; and one who can sin if she wants should be called truly chaste. They soon fall in love with the beauty; the nasty one is easily ignited by passion. It's hard to protect something that many people love. It is annoying to own something that no one considers worth having, but it is still less of a misfortune to have an ugly one than to cherish a beautiful one. Nothing is safe, to which the desires of all people are directed. One seduces with beauty, another with intelligence, another with playfulness, this one with pleasant manners. One way or another, at one time or another, victory is achieved as soon as the attack is carried out in every possible way. As for marriage for the sake of housekeeping, consolation in illness, and avoidance of loneliness: a faithful slave who obeys the will of the master and carries out his orders is a much better manager than a wife who considers herself a mistress as much as she acts contrary to the will of her husband, i.e. acts as she pleases, and not as she is told. Friends and servants who have grown up in the house since childhood, obliging us with good deeds, can better care for the sick than the one who counts her tears for us, sells services coupled with dirty tricks for the hope of an inheritance, and, spreading anxiety, outrages the soul of the patient with despair. But she herself fell ill—be with her and never leave her bedside. If the wife is kind and sweet (and such a bird is rare), we suffer when she suffers from childbirth, we are tormented when she is in danger. But a wise man can never be alone. His company consists of all the good people who exist and who ever will be, and with a free thought he is transported wherever he wants. What he cannot embrace with his body, he embraces with his mind. And if there is a lack in people, he speaks to God. When he is lonely, he will be least lonely. Further, getting married for the sake of children, so that our name does not perish, or so that we can have support in old age and have reliable heirs, is the height of stupidity. What good is it for us who are departing from the world if another is called by our name, when even the son does not always support the name of the father, and there are countless people who bear the same name? Or what support is there for old age to bring up in the house someone who may die before you or turn out to be a person of the most depraved behavior? And perhaps, when you reach middle age, you will find that you are not dying soon? The best and most reliable heirs are friends and close people whom you love more judiciously than those whom you are forced to have as heirs, whether you like it or not. Although it will be safer for the inheritance if you, while still alive, make good use of your property than to leave what you have acquired through your labor for unknown uses.” Which of the Christians whose life is in heaven, who say daily: I wish to be resolved and be with Christ (Phil. 1:23), will not make Theophrastus blush with these and similar reasoning? Will a joint heir with Christ really desire a human heir? And will he desire children, and will he be comforted by the generation of grandchildren who may become victims of the Antichrist, when we read that Moses and Samuel preferred others to their children, and did not consider as children those who turned out to be displeasing to the Lord? When Hartius asked Cicero, after his divorce from Terence, to marry his sister, he flatly refused, saying that he could not be equally engaged in his wife and philosophy. And she, meanwhile, an excellent husband who had learned the wisdom of Tullius, married her husband to his enemy Sallust, to the third Messala Carvinus, and, as it were, slipped down some steps of eloquence. Socrates had two wives, Xanthippe and Miro, the granddaughter of Aristides. Since they often quarreled among themselves, and he used to laugh that they were arguing because of him, an ugliest man, with an upturned nose, a bald head, hairy shoulders and crooked legs, they finally turned their rage on him, and, viciously beating him and putting him to flight, pursued him for a long time. Another time, for contradiction during the endless curse of Xanthippe, who was standing on an elevated place, doused with unclean water, he wiped his head and only answered: I knew that after this thunder it would rain. The wife of L. Sylla Felix (if he were not married) 11, Metella, was openly dissolute; Everyone was talking about this in Athens, but Sylla (because we learn about our misfortune after everyone else) did not know, and heard about his family secret for the first time only in a quarrel with enemies. Book Pompey learned about the debauchery of his wife Mucia, who was surrounded by Pontic eunuchs and Mithridatian troops, from a companion on the campaign, when others thought that he, knowing, tolerated it: and the sad news embarrassed the winner of the world. M. Cato Denzor was married to Actoria Paula, a woman of low fortune, drunk, unbridled and, no one will believe it, proud in relation to Cato. I say this so that someone does not think that by marrying a poor woman, he will sufficiently ensure consent. Philip, the king of Macedon, against whom Demosthenes' philippics were directed, was driven out by his angry wife when he entered the bedroom as usual; kicked out, he remained silent and calmed his grief with tragic verse. At the Olympic Games, the rhetorician Gorgias read to the Greeks, who were at that time quarreling among themselves, an excellent book about harmony. His enemy Melanphius said to him: he preaches to us about harmony who, in one house, is not able to bring three people into agreement, himself, his wife and the maid. Indeed, his wife was jealous of the beauty of the maid and tormented her most honest husband with daily quarrels. All of Euripides' tragedies consist of slander against women. Why does Hermione say: I was seduced by the advice of evil women. In Leptis, a semi-barbaric city located in the desert, there is a custom according to which the daughter-in-law asks her mother-in-law to borrow a pot the next day, and she resolutely refuses. From this you will see the truth of Terence’s famous saying, to which he deliberately gave ambiguity: what does this mean: all mothers-in-law hate daughters-in-law 12? We read about one noble Roman a story of this kind: when his friends reproached him for divorcing his beautiful, honest and rich wife, he stretched out his foot and said to them: “and this shoe that you see seems new and beautiful to you; but no one except me knows where he is pressing me.” Herodotus said that a woman is shy while she is dressed. And our comedian considers someone lucky who has never married. And what can we say about Pasiphae, Clytemnestra and Eriphile, of whom the first, satiated with pleasures, because she was the king’s wife, wanted, as they say, to copulate with a bull; another killed her husband out of love for an adulterer; and the third betrayed Amphiaraus, and preferred a gold necklace to saving her husband! Disputes over wives and concubines give rise to tragedies, destroying houses, cities and kingdoms; - the hands of parents arm themselves against their children, obscene feasts are organized, and because of one woman, Europe and Asia are waging a ten-year war. We read about some that, having divorced the next day after marriage, they immediately got married. Both husbands deserve the same condemnation, both the one who stopped liking him too soon and the other who liked him too soon. Epicurus, the defender of voluptuousness, (although his disciple Metrodorus had Leontia as his wife) says that a wise man should rarely marry, because marriage is associated with many inconveniences. – Just as wealth, honors, bodily health and so on, which we call indifferent, are neither good nor evil, but occupying, so to speak, the middle, are good or evil, depending on their use and outcome: so wives stand on the line of good and evil; It is difficult for a wise husband to find himself in such a position as not to know whether to call something good or evil. Chrysippus is ridiculous when he orders the wise to marry so as not to dishonor Jupiter Hamelius and Genetlius (i.e., the wedding and childbirth). For in this case, marriage would not be obligatory for the Latins, because the latter do not have Jupiter Nuptial (i.e., marriage). If the names of the gods, as he thinks, served as a destiny for human life, he would already offend Jupiter Stator (the stander), who would give himself the pleasure of sitting. Aristotle, Plutarch and our Seneca wrote books about marriage, of which we have cited some above, and we also present the following. The love of beautiful appearance is an oblivion of reason and is close to madness; This is a shameful vice and strongly inconsistent with common sense. It upsets enterprises, drives lofty and noble souls to powerlessness, distracts them from great thoughts to empty ones; makes them incessantly complaining, angry, impudent, rudely power-hungry, slavishly flattering, useless to everyone, and, in the end, to love itself. For, burning with an insatiable desire for pleasure, he (the lover) wastes a lot of time in suspicions, tears, complaints - he arouses hatred towards himself, and in conclusion turns his hatred towards himself. A complete study of love is given by Plato (in Phaedrus); and Lysias explains all her disadvantages by the fact that she is driven not by reason, but by passion, and is the most intolerable guardian of female beauty. Seneca, among other things, says that he knew one well-known man who, when preparing to go to a public place, tied his chest with his wife’s bandage and could not spend a single minute without it; husband and wife did not drink anything that their lips did not touch; Then they did other no less absurd things, in which the reckless power of fiery passion was manifested. Although the beginning of love is respectable, its excess is ugly. The fact that someone is mad for a good cause makes no difference. This is why Xistus says in sayings: he is an adulterer who is too ardent a lover in relation to his wife. For in relation to another man’s wife all love is shameful, but in relation to one’s own it is excessive. A wise husband should love his wife with reason, and not with passion. He controls passionate movements, and is not carried away by them with recklessness towards copulation. There is nothing more vile than to love your wife as an adulteress. And indeed, let those who say that they married and bear children for the sake of the republic and the human race imitate at least cattle, and after making their wives pregnant, do not lose sons; let them behave towards their wives not like lovers, but like husbands. The marriages of some corresponded to adultery; and, what an incongruity, chastity will be demanded from them by those who took it away. That’s why oversaturation soon breaks up this kind of marriage. As soon as the charm of passion passes, what was desirable will lose value. There is nothing to say, notes Seneca, about poor husbands, most of whom took the name of husbands so as not to fall under the laws passed against bachelors. How can one who has married have moral influence, prescribe chastity, maintain respect for himself as a husband? The opinion of the most learned man is this: first of all, one must maintain chastity; with its loss all virtue falls. He is the pinnacle of feminine virtues. It serves as approval for the poor, elevates the rich, redeems the ugliness of the ugly, beautifies the beauty; it renders a great service to the ancestors of the blood, who are not spoiled by thieves brought in by offspring; provides a service to children who will not be forced to either blush for their mother or doubt their father; but mainly provides a service to the woman herself, whom she protects from dishonor on the part of someone else’s body. In a state of captivity, there is no greater misfortune than being drawn to satisfy someone else's lust. The consulate makes husbands famous; eloquence perpetuates their name; military glory and triumph imparts nobility to men of low birth. There are many things that make excellent minds famous. Female virtue is actually chastity. It made Lucretia equal to Brutus, and, perhaps, placed him above him: because Brutus learned not to endure slavery from a woman. It equated Cornelia with Gracchus and Portia with another Brutus. Tanaquila is more famous than her husband. Antiquity hid that one between the many names of kings; and this virtue, rare among women, placed it too high to be forgotten by the entire series of centuries. So let married women imitate Theona, Cleobulina, Gorgunta, Timoclia, Claudius and Cornelius; and although they find in the Apostle permission for bad women to enter into a second marriage, let them learn from the reading that before our faith shone in the world, monogamous people always enjoyed honor among women: with their hands, sacrifices were usually made to female Fortune; there was no bigamous priest, nor a bigamous flaminus; and the Athenian hierophants, to this day, celibate themselves with a decoction of hemlock, and, upon being assigned to the class of priests, cease to be men. The second point is that those who are baptized cannot be tempted by the devil. And so that it does not seem that he said something stupid, he adds: “And those who are subject to temptations show by this that they were baptized with water only, and not with the spirit, as we read about Simon the Magus. Why does John also say: whoever is born of God does not commit sin, for His seed abides in him; and cannot sin, for he is born of God. For this reason the essence of the child of God and the child of the devil is revealed (1 John 3:9-10). And at the end of the message: everyone born of God does not sin; but the birth of God watches over him, and the evil one does not touch him (1 John 5:18).” Indeed, the objection is strong, and would have remained unresolved if the testimony of John himself had not served to resolve it. For he immediately adds: children, keep yourselves from the demands of idols (1 John 5:21). If everyone born of God does not sin and cannot be tempted by the devil, then why does he prescribe to beware of temptation? And also in the same message: if we say that there is no sin, we deceive ourselves, and we do not have the truth. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we commit a lie, and the word thereof is not in us (1 John 1:8-10). I believe that John wrote while he was baptized himself and to those who were baptized, and that every sin comes from the devil. He confesses himself to be a sinner and expresses hope for the remission of sins after baptism, and my Jovinian says: do not touch me, for I am pure (Is. 65:5). So what? Does the apostle contradict himself? Not at all. In the same place, he immediately explains why he said this: My children, I write this to you, so that you do not sin. But if anyone sins, the imams will intercede with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And that cleansing is for our sins; not about ours specifically, but about the whole world. And we understand this, because we know Him, and keep His commandments. Say that he knows Him, but does not keep His commandments; it is a lie, and in this there is no truth. And whoever keeps His word, truly in this the love of God is perfect. Of this we understand, for we are in Him. The verb to abide in Him must eat, just as he went out to eat, and let this one walk in the same way (1 John 2:1-6). For this reason, he says, I write to you, my children: whoever is born of God does not commit sin, so that you do not sin, and know that until then you will remain in the birth of the Lord until you sin. Moreover, those who remain firmly in the birth of the Lord cannot sin. For what fellowship is there between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial (2 Cor. 6:14)? Just as day and night cannot be mixed, so truth cannot be mixed with unrighteousness, sin with good deeds, Christ with Antichrist. If we accept Christ under the roof of our hearts, then we drive out the devil from there. If we sin and the devil enters through the doors of sin, Christ immediately withdraws. Why does David, having sinned, say: reward me with the joy of Your salvation (Ps. 50:14), i.e. joy lost due to sin. Say that he knew Him, but did not keep His commandments; it is a lie, and in this there is no truth. Christ is called true: I am the way and the life and the truth (John 14:6). It is in vain that we boast of those whose commandments we do not keep. He who knows good and does not do it is a sinner. Just as a body without a spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead. Let us not consider our knowledge that there is one God to be a great thing, because even the demons believe and tremble. The verb is to abide in Him, to eat as He went to eat, and let this one walk in the same way. Let our enemy choose one of two things he wants: we give it to him. Does he abide in Christ, or does he not abide? If he abides, then let him walk like Christ. If the promise to become like the Lord’s virtues was given recklessly, he does not abide in Christ, because he does not walk like Christ. He (Christ) did not commit sin, nor was flattery found in His mouth; We do not rebuke the contrary (1 Pet. 2:22–23), and like a sheep before his shearer he opened not his mouth (Is. 53:7); The prince of this world came to Him, and found nothing in Him; Him, who committed no sin, God has made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). But we, according to the letter of James, all sin greatly (James 3:2), and no one is clean from sins, even if he lives only one day: for who can boast of having a pure heart? or who dares to decide to be clean from sins (Prov. 20:9)? And we are guilty in the likeness of Adam's crime (Rom. 5:14). Why does David say: Behold, I was conceived in iniquity, and my mother gave birth to me in sins (Ps. 50:7). And blessed Job: even if I am righteous, my mouth will utter wickedness; If I am blameless, I will be obstinate. And even if I cleanse myself with snow and wash myself with clean hands, you have sufficiently stained me with filth, and my clothes are abhorred by me (Job 9:20, 30-31). But so that we do not despair completely, believing that after sins committed after baptism we cannot be saved, he immediately softens this: and if anyone sins, the imams intercede with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and there is cleansing for our sins; not about our own, but about the whole world. He says this to the believers after baptism, and promises to intercede for their sins in the face of the Lord. And he does not say: if you sin in any way, you have an intercessor with the Father of Christ, and that is cleansing for your sins, so that you do not mean by such those who received baptism not with full faith; but he says: the imams interceded with the Father of Jesus Christ, and that is cleansing for our sins; and not only about the sins of John and those, but also of the whole world. By the whole world we mean both the apostles and all believers. From which it is clear that after baptism it is possible to sin. For we would have no need of an intercessor, Jesus Christ, if it were impossible to sin. The Apostle Peter, to whom it was said: he who is worn out does not require that he be washed out again (John 13:10); and you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church (Matthew 16:18), having denied (Christ), being frightened by the maidservant. And the Lord himself says: Simone, Simone, behold, Satan asks you to sow like wheat. I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail (Luke 22:31–32). And in the same (?) place: watch and pray, so that you do not fall into attack: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41). You will answer that this was said before the cross; but even after the cross we say in the Lord’s Prayer: and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matthew 6:12–13). If we did not sin after baptism, then why would we pray for the remission of sins that were already left to us in baptism? Why do we pray that we will not be led into temptation and that we will be delivered from the evil one, if the devil can no longer tempt the baptized? It would be a different matter if this prayer applied to the catechumens, and was not appropriate for the faithful and Christians. Paul, the chosen vessel, tames his body and enslaves it, lest, preaching to others, he himself will be condemned (1 Cor. 9:27). And here, he says, was given to me, a foul of the flesh, an angel of Satan, who will strangle me (2 Cor. 12:7). And he says to the Corinthians: I am afraid, lest, as the serpent deceives Eve with his wickedness, so your minds also will be corrupted from the simplicity of Christ (2 Cor. 11:3). And in another place: if you give him anything, and I. For even if we are given gifts, we are also given gifts, for your sake, in the face of Christ, may we not be offended by Satan; We do not fail to understand his plans (2 Cor. 2:10–11). And one more thing: temptation has not reached you, just human. God is faithful, who will not leave you to be tempted more than you can; but with temptation he will also create excess, so that he will be able to bear it (1 Cor. 10:13). And be sure to stand, so that you will be careful, so that you will not fall (ibid., v. 12). And to the Galatians: now it is good: who can forbid you not to repent of the truth? (Gal. 5:7). And in another place: we would like to come to you, since Paul once and twice, and Satan rebukes us (1 Thessalonians 2:18). And to your spouses: get together again, so that Satan does not tempt you with your intemperance (1 Cor. 7:5). And again: I say, walk in the Spirit, and do not commit carnal lust. For the flesh lusts after the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; These things oppose one another, so that you can do them whatever you want (Gal. 5:16–17). Composed of both, we must necessarily endure the mutual struggle of one and the other substance. And to the Ephesians: Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, and against the powers, and against the rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). Does anyone think that after baptism we should be carefree and sleep? It is the same in the Epistle to the Hebrews: it is impossible for those who have been enlightened by one, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have been partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the power of the age to come, and those who have fallen away, to be renewed again to repentance, who again crucify the Son of God to themselves, and those who reprove (Heb. 6:4-6). It cannot, of course, be denied that those who were enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who became partakers of the Holy Spirit, who tasted God’s good word, received baptism. If those who have received baptism cannot sin, then how does the apostle say in this case: and those who have fallen away? But so that Montanus and Novatus, who claim that it is impossible to renew into repentance the second those who crucify the Son of God and reprove them, do not find this place favorable for themselves, he further eliminates such error and says: we hope for you, beloved, better, and holding to salvation, even if we say so. For God will not offend you, forget your deeds and labors of love, which you showed in his name, serving the saints and serving (Heb. 6:9-10). And indeed, it would be a great injustice on the part of God if He only punished sins and did not take into account good deeds. I said this, says the apostle, in order to distract you from your sins and make you more careful through the fear of hopelessness. But I hope that you are better and closer to salvation. For it is not characteristic of the truth of God to forget good deeds and the service that you have shown for the sake of His name and show in relation to the saints, but to remember only sins. And the Apostle James, knowing that those who have received baptism can be subject to temptation and fall of their own free will, says: blessed is the man who endures temptation; having been tempted beforehand, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him (James 1:12). And so that we do not come to the conclusion that, following the example of the book of Genesis, where it is narrated about God’s temptation of Abraham, God also tempts us, he says: let no one be tempted, saying that we are tempted from God. For God is a threat to the evil, but He does not tempt anyone. Everyone is tempted by his own lust to be attracted and deceived. The same lust, once conceived, gives birth to sin; The sin of one's actions gives birth to death (James 1:13–15). God created us with free will; Necessity does not impel us to either virtues or vices. Otherwise, where there was a need, there would be no place for a crown. As in good deeds, the doer is God, for we can reach the end with the assistance of neither the willing nor the current, but the merciful and helping God: there in evil deeds and in sins our seeds are motives, and fulfillment is the work of the devil. As soon as he sees that on the foundation of Christ we are building hay, wood, straw, then he adds fire. Therefore, we will create gold, silver, precious stones, and he will not dare to touch, although this time he will not be completely faithful and safe. For the lion sits in ambush and in a hidden place to kill the innocent. And the vessels of the poor are tempted by the oven, but the righteous men are tested by disasters (Sir. 27:6). And in another place it is written: child, if you begin to work for God, prepare yourself for temptation (Sir. 2:1). Again James says the same thing: be creators of the word, and not just hearers. If anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a creator, he is like a man looking at the face of his being in a mirror. Take heed and go away, and forget what you are (James 1:22–24). In vain would he exhort to unite works with faith if after baptism one could not sin. He who keeps the whole law, he says, will sin in one thing and be guilty of all (James 2:10). Which of us is without sin? God lock everyone under sin, that He may have mercy on everyone (Rom. 11:32). And Peter says: The Lord’s message is to deliver the pious from adversity. And about false teachers: these are the springs of abyss and darkness, set in motion by whirlwinds, to whom the dark darkness is kept. Being proud of vanity, they deceive those who have just fled and returned to error into filthiness of carnal lust (2 Pet. 2:9, 17-18). Don't you think that the apostolic speech describes a new ignorant sedition? They open, as it were, sources of knowledge; They promise - although they do not have it - the rain of teaching, like prophetic clouds touched by the truth of God, and are excited by whirlwinds of demons and vices. They speak majestic things, and all their speech is pride: but everyone with a high heart is unclean before God (Proverbs 16:5). As soon as those who have escaped from their sins, let them return to their error; and they advise, in case of intemperance, the enjoyment of food and meats. Who, in fact, is not pleased to hear: we will eat and drink and reign forever? They call the wise and prudent corrupt: they listen more willingly to people with sweet speeches. The Apostle John, or rather the Savior in the person of John, writing to the angel of the Ephesian church, says: We know your works, and your labor, and your patience, and how you have labored for my name. But the imam is sorry for you, because you left your first love. Remember where you slept from, and repent, and do the first thing. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lamp from its place, unless you repent (Apoc. 2:2-5). In the same way, he calls other churches to repentance: Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and threatens them if they do not return to their previous deeds. And he says that in Sardis he has a few who have not desecrated their garments and walk with him in white, as if they are worthy. When he says to any of them: remember where you slept from; or: behold, the devil will put you in prison, so that you may be tempted; or: where do you live, where is the throne of Satan; or: remember what you received and heard, and observe and repent, and so on: this also says to everyone who believed and received baptism, but, having stood firm, fell through sin. I will give a few examples from the Old Testament; because in all cases when this covenant does not favor them, they usually say: the law and the prophets until John (Matthew 11:13). Who, however, does not know that under another divine economy all the saints, although in the opposite direction, performed the same merits that Christians now perform? As Abraham formerly pleased himself in his marital state, so now virgins please, maintaining constant purity. He served the Law and his time; but we serve the Gospel and our time, in which the ends of the world have reached (1 Cor. 10:11). David, chosen according to the heart of God, who fulfilled all His will and said in one psalm: Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in kindness, and I have not fainted in trusting in the Lord. Tempt me, O Lord, and test me, kindle my bowels and my heart (Ps. 25:1-2), then he is tempted by the devil, and after repenting of his sin, he says: have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy (Ps. 50:1). He expresses the desire that great sin be atoned for by great mercy. Solomon, the beloved of the Lord, to whom God revealed himself twice, turned away from the love of God due to his love for women. The Book of Days (Chronicles) tells that the most wicked king Manasseh, after the Babylonian captivity, was restored to his original dignity. And Josiah, the holy man, was killed by the king of Egypt on the field of Mageddon. In the same way, Jesus the son of Joseph, the great priest, although he served as a prototype of the Savior, who bore our sins and bought for himself a foreign church from among the nations, yet in Scripture he appears dressed in vile vestments, and the devil stands at his right hand; and then his bright clothes are returned to him (Zech. 3:1–5). It would be superfluous to talk about Moses and Aaron, how during the water of dissent they offended God and did not enter the Promised Land (Num. 20:10-12), after Job mentions that both angels and every creation can sin, saying: what? food will a person be clean before God? Or is a man without blemish in his affairs? If he does not believe in his servants, and obstinately sees in his angels, then how much more are they who live in mortal churches, from them we ourselves are from the same mortal being (Job 4:17-19). Temptation is the life of man on earth (Job 7:1). Lucifer (light-bringer), who sent (light) to all tribes, also fell. And he, brought up in the paradise of sweetness between the twelve stones, being wounded, descended from the mountain of the Lord into the underworld. Why does the Savior say in the Gospel: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven (Luke 10:18). If there is a fall in heaven, is there not much more on earth? And although Lucifer fell (he is also the ancient serpent after the fall), his strength is in his loins, and his strength is in the navel of the womb. Great trees overshadow him, and he sleeps with cattails and reeds and sitovy (Job 40:11, 16-17). He is the king of all who live in the waters (Job 41:26), i.e. where there is lust, voluptuousness, insemination, marriage irrigation. For who will reveal the face of his clothing? And who will open the doors of his face? The pagans feed on it, and the Phoenician people share it (Job 40:25, 41:5–6). And so that the reader does not think to himself that this refers only to the Phoenician tribes and the Ethiopian peoples who eat the dragon, we are immediately talking about those who swim across the sea of ​​this age and rush to the haven of salvation: and on the fishermen’s ships his head stands like an anvil, motionless: he imputes iron like chaff, and copper like rotten wood. All the gold of the sea under it is like clay. He makes the abyss boil like a copper vessel: he thinks of the sea as a peacemaker, and the tartar of the abyss as a prisoner. He sees everything that is high (Job 41). And it seems that my Jovinian can easily faint under its weight. But why am I talking about holy men and angels, who, being creations of God, can be subject to sin in every way? He dared to tempt the Son of God, and, being repulsed by the first and second famous sayings of the latter, nevertheless raises his head; when he received the wound for the third time, he retreated for a while, postponing rather than stopping the temptation altogether. And the most important thing we think about baptism is that just as it forgives past sins, it cannot protect for the future if those who are baptized do not preserve their hearts with all care. We finally get to food, and we encounter difficulties presented by the third proposition: “Everything was created in order to serve for the use of mortals. And just as man, a rational animal, as if a certain inhabitant and ruler of the world, submits to God and worships his Creator, so all animals were created either for food for people, or for clothing, or for plowing the earth, or for transporting earthly products, or for transporting man himself; That’s why they are called jumenta (livestock - lat.), because they help (juvent). What is a man, says David, who remembers him, or a son of man, who visits him? You made him a little less than an angel, you crowned him with glory and honor, and you placed your hand over his deeds. Thou hast subdued all things under his nose, all the sheep and oxen, and also the cattle of Poland, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, the passing paths of the sea (Ps. 8:5-9). Let, he says, an ox be created for horning, a horse for a seat, a dog for storage, goats for milk, sheep for wool. What is the benefit of a pig besides meat food? Why wild goats, deer, chamois, wild boars, hares and similar game? Why do wild and domestic geese? What are ducks for, what is a wineberry plant for? What is a hazel grouse, what is a loon, what is a thrush? Why do chickens run back and forth between houses? All this would have been created by God in vain if it had not been consumed as food. However, there is no need for proof when Scripture teaches in the clearest way (Genesis 9) that we have been given every moving thing for food, along with herbal potions; and the apostle exclaims: everything is pure (Rom. 14:20; Titus 1:15), and nothing is considered, acceptable with thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4:4), and that in the last times there will appear those who forbid marrying and eating meat, which God has created for consumption (ibid. vv. 1-3). The Lord Himself was called by the Pharisees a wine drinker and a drinker, a drinker of publicans and sinners: because he did not refuse Zacchaeus’s dinner and went to wedding feasts. However, it’s a different matter if, out of stupid argumentativeness, you say that he went to a Lenten dinner and, according to the custom of false teachers, said: I eat this, I don’t eat that; I don’t want to drink wine, because I created it from water. In the form of His blood He offered not water, but wine. On Sunday he eats fish and honeycomb, and not sochetsa, nuts and stew. The Apostle Peter does not wait, according to Jewish custom, for a star, but goes up to the upper room to dine at the sixth hour. Paul on the ship breaks bread, not figs. Timofey, who has a stomach problem, advises him to drink wine, not pear kvass. They admire their abstinence from food, as if pagan superstition did not observe castum 13, in honor of the mother of the gods and Isis.” So I will follow in the footsteps of the stated position, and before I turn to the Scriptures and teach from them that fasting is pleasing to God and abstinence is pleasing to Him, I will contrast philosophical arguments with arguments. I will prove that we do not follow the teachings of Empedocles and Pythagoras, who think that in view of μετεμψύχωσις one should not eat anything moving or living, and those who cut down spruce and oak are considered guilty of the same crime as parricides and poisoners; but we honor our Creator, who created everything for the benefit of people. Just as an ox was created for feeding, a horse for a seat, dogs for guarding, goats for milk, sheep for wool: likewise pigs and deer, wild goats and hares, and so on: but all this was not directly created for food, but for other human uses. For if everything that moves and lives was created for food and intended to please the throat: then let them answer me why elephants were created, why lions, bears, leopards, wolves; what are echidnas, scorpions, bedbugs, mosquitoes, fleas for? why a kite, an eagle, a raven, a hawk; Why whales, dolphins, seals and small shells? Which of us ever eats a lion, or a viper, or a kite, or a stork, or worms that creep along the banks? Therefore, just as these have their own special purpose, we can say the same about other animals, fish and birds, created not for food, but for healing. Doctors know in how many cases echidna meat, from which theriak is prepared, is suitable. Pieces of ivory are used in various medicines. Hyena bile restores vision, its droppings and dog carrion heal wounds. And what may seem surprising to the reader, Galen ἐv άπλοῖς (in simplicity, naively - Greek) teaches in how many cases human dung is beneficial in treatment. Naturalists say that the snake's skin, which it sheds, miraculously soothes ear pain. What seems to the ignorant to be as useless as bedbugs? If a leech screams, it immediately falls away as soon as it hears the bug's smoke; applying it relieves urinary constipation. All medical books show what benefits the fat of pigs, geese, chickens and pheasants brings; if you read them, you will see that the kite represents as many medical remedies as members. Peacock dung relieves the pain of gout. If my task were to talk about the treatment of the body, I would say for what diseases cranes, storks, eagle bile, hawk blood, strafocamilus, frogs, chameleons, droppings and swallow meat are suitable. Let anyone who wishes to read Aristotle and Theophrastus, who discuss this in prose, Marcellus Sidetes and our Flavius ​​- in hexameters; equally - Pliny the second, Dioscorides and others, both naturalists and physicians, who benefit from every herb, every stone, every animal, both reptiles, birds and swimmers, for their art. So, if you tell me: why was the pig created? I, as children usually do in an argument, will immediately answer you: what are vipers for, what are scorpions for? Do not consider God a creator of excess because there are many animals and birds that your throat does not accept. But lest this seem more a matter of argumentativeness and arrogance than the truth, listen to the fact that pigs, wild boars, deer and other animals were created so that warriors, athletes, shipbuilders, rhetoricians, miners and others engaged in hard work, who need bodily strength, who carry weapons and fodder, who crush each other’s limbs with their fists and heels, who work with oars, have food. who need a strong chest to speak and shout, who destroy mountains and sleep under cloudless skies and rain. However, our religion does not educate πύκτην 14, not an athlete, not shipbuilders, not warriors, not navvies, but a follower of wisdom who devotes himself to the worship of God and knows why he was created, why he turns in the world from which he is in a hurry to leave. Why does the apostle say: whenever I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10). And even though our outer man decays, yet our inner man is renewed all the days (2 Cor. 4:16). And I wish to be resolved and to be with Christ (Phil. 1:23). And do not please the flesh through lust (Rom. 13:14). Is everyone commanded not to have two coats of clothing, not to have bread in their knapsack, not to have brass in their belt, not to have a staff in their hand, not to have a shoe on their feet - to sell everything they own, give to the poor and follow Jesus (Matthew 10 and Mark 6)? No, only those who want to be perfect. John the Baptist gives a different commandment to soldiers and a different commandment to publicans. The Lord says in the Gospel to the one who boasted that he had fulfilled everything prescribed by the law: if you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and come after Me (Matthew 19:21). So that it would not seem as if He imposes a great burden on someone who does not want to, He left it to the listener’s own will, saying: if you want to be perfect. That’s why I’ll tell you: if you want to be perfect, then it’s better to feed your soul than your body. If you are a small child and the chef’s soups give you pleasure, no one will take hearty meals out of your mouth. Eat and drink, and if you like, then rise joyfully with Israel and sing: let us drink and drink, for in the morning we will die (Is. 22:13). Let him eat and drink, who waits for death after eating, who speaks with Epicurus: after death there is nothing, and death itself is nothing. We believe Paul, who thunders: the belly is trash, and the belly is trash. God will abolish both this and that (1 Cor. 6:13). We have cited this little from the Scriptures in order to show our agreement with the teachings of the philosophers. However, who does not know that every nation usually feeds not on what is prescribed by the general natural law, but on what it has in abundance? For example, the Arabs and Saracens, and the entire desert barbarian country, live on the milk and meat of camels: because an animal of this kind, given the local climate and the barrenness of the countries, is born among them and feeds. They consider it wicked to eat pork. This is because pigs that feed on acorns, chestnuts, fern roots and barley are rare or even non-existent among them; and even if they met, they do not have the food that we mentioned above. On the contrary, even faithful peoples, if you encourage them to eat donkeys and camels, consider that feeding them the meat of these animals is the same as forcing them to eat a wolf or a raven. In Pontus and Phrygia, the father of the family considers white and fat worms, which have a black head and are born in a tree wormhole, to be a great profit in the household. And just as we consider hazel grouse and wineberry, mullus and scar a delicacy: so they have the luxury of eating ς λ φ γο ν. The peoples of the East and Libya have the custom of eating locusts, since whole clouds of them are found in the desert and hot, barren spaces. The reality of this is also proven by John the Baptist. If you offer to eat locusts to a Phrygian or a resident of Pontus, he will consider it bad. Force a Syrian, an African and an Arab to swallow Pontic worms, he will look at them with the same contempt as at flies, stone legs and lizards. Meanwhile, the Syrians have the custom of eating amphibious crocodiles, and Africans even eat green lizards. In Egypt and Palestine, due to the rarity of oxen, no one eats cows, but the meat of bulls, oxen and calves is eaten. And in our region it is considered a crime to eat calves. That is why Emperor Valens recently promulgated a law in the East prohibiting anyone from eating veal meat, in view of the benefits for agriculture and to correct the most harmful custom of the Judaizing people, who, instead of fattened cattle and sucklings (piglets), devour calves. Nomads, troglodytes, Scythians and new barbarians - the Huns - eat half-raw meat. Then, the fish-eaters, a people who wander along the shores of the Red Sea, lay out the fish on stones hot from the heat of the sun, and eat only this kind of food. Sarmatians, Quads, Vandals and other countless peoples eat with pleasure the meat of horses and foxes. What can I say about other peoples when, as a boy, I myself saw in Gaul that the Atticots, a British people, feed on human flesh, and when they meet herds of pigs, large and small livestock in the forests, they have the custom of cutting off the asses and tits of shepherds and women, and they are only considered a tasty food? The Scots do not have their own wives; it seems to have read Plato’s politics and seems to follow the example of Cato: because they do not have any wife of their own, but they dissipate as they please. The Persians, Medes, Indians and Ethiopians, constituting kingdoms of considerable size and equal to the Roman Empire, copulate with mothers and grandmothers, daughters and granddaughters. The Messagetians and Derviks consider those most unfortunate to be those who die from disease, and when parents, relatives and neighbors reach old age, they slaughter them and devour them, finding it more correct to eat them themselves than to leave it to the worms. The Tibarens hang the old men they loved on the gallows. The Hyrcanians throw out half-dead ones to birds and dogs, and the Caspians throw out dead ones to the same animals. The Scythians bury alive with the bones of the dead those whom the dead loved. Bactras throw out old people to dogs, which are kept for this very purpose. When Stasanor, Alexander's prefect, wanted to destroy this, he almost lost the province. Force an Egyptian to eat sheep's milk; make the Pelusiot eat an onion, if you can. In Egypt, almost every city worships special beasts and monsters, and what it worships, it considers inviolable and holy. Why do the cities themselves borrow their names from the names of animals: Leonto, Kino, Liko, Busiris, Tmuis, which translated means “goat”. And to know what gods Egypt has always accepted, their city was recently named after Adrianov’s lover Antipous. So, you clearly see that not only in food, but also in burial, and in marriage, and in the entire way of life, each people is guided by its own custom and property, and what it has learned, it considers to be natural law. Let us assume that meat food is a common property of all peoples, and there it is permissible whatever is born where. But what significance does this have for us, whose life is in heaven, who, standing above Pythagoras and Emnedocles, and all the followers of wisdom, consider ourselves obligated not to the one from whom we were born, but to the one by whom we were reborn, who subordinate our flesh, rebellious and carried away by the excitement of lusts, to abstinence? Eating meat, drinking wine, satiating the belly are breeding grounds for lust. Why does the comedian say: “without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus will freeze.” Vices enter the soul through the five senses, as if through certain windows. The enemy army cannot take possession of the metropolis and the castle of the mind before breaking into its gates. The soul is weakened by their disturbances, and it is captivated by sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Whether anyone enjoys games in the circus, or the wrestling of athletes, or the mobility of comedians, the beauty of women, the shine of precious stones, clothes, metals and other things of the same kind, the freedom of the soul is stolen through the windows of the eyes, and the well-known prophetic saying is fulfilled: death has entered through your windows (Jer. 21). Then, the ear is seduced by the various sounds of the organ and the play of voices; and everything that enters through the ears from the poems of poets and comedians, subtle jokes and songs of mimes, weakens spiritual courage. That the pleasantness of the smell, the incense of incense, ormut, cypha moss, enantha, and the skin of a wandering mouse are suitable for the depraved and lovers, only the depraved will not agree with this. Further, who does not know that the passion for food is the mother of greed and keeps the soul on earth, as if burdened with shackles? Because of the short pleasure of appetite, lands and seas are circumnavigated, and we sweat our whole lives at work so that sweet wine and precious food may pass through our throats. The feeling of other people's bodies and fiery passion for women are adjacent to madness. For the sake of this feeling, we wish, we become angry, we become delighted, we envy, we are jealous, we indulge in worries, and when our desire is fulfilled, after some repentance we are inflamed again, we achieve the same thing that, having done it, we repent as before. So, when through these gates, as it were, some shelves of indignation reach the castle of our mind, where will there be freedom, where is his courage, where is the thought of God, especially when the feeling depicts past pleasures to him, and with the reminder of vices encourages the soul to sympathize with them and in some way do what it is not doing at the moment? For these reasons, many of the philosophers left the crowded cities and suburban estates, where the irrigated field, the branches and leaves of the trees, the rustling of birds, the smooth surface of the spring, the babbling stream and many attractions for the eyes and ears, were left so that the luxury and abundance of everything would not weaken the courage of the soul and would not defile its chastity. For it is not useful to have often before your eyes what you were once passionate about, and to subject yourself to the test of what you can hardly bear to be deprived of. And the Pythagoreans avoided the crowds of this kind and usually lived in solitude and deserted places. Likewise, the Platonists and Stoics spent their time in groves and porticoes of churches, so that, under the influence of the holiness of the majestic place, they could think of nothing but virtue. And even though Plato himself was rich and Diogenes trampled on his bed with dirty feet, in order to be able to indulge in philosophy, he chose the Academy, an estate far from the city, and not only deserted, but also contagious; this is so that treatment and frequent recurrence of illnesses destroy the desire for voluptuousness, and so that his disciples do not find pleasure in anything other than what they learn. We read about some that they gouged out their eyes so that their vision would not distract their philosophical contemplation. Therefore, the famous Crates of Thebes, having thrown a considerable amount of gold into the sea, said: go to the bottom, bad wishes: I drown you so that you do not drown me. He deceives himself who believes that he can both enjoy an abundance of food and drink and indulge in wisdom, i.e. live in pleasures and not be subjected to vicious pleasures. If we, being far from this, are often carried away by the lures of nature, and are forced to desire what we do not have in abundance: then how can we consider ourselves free when we are surrounded by networks of pleasures? Our thought is occupied with what it sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches, and strives for that object whose pleasantness captivates it. Because the mind sees and the mind hears, and that we can neither hear nor see anything if our thought does not participate in what we see and hear - an ancient saying. It is difficult, even completely impossible, while drowning in pleasures and pleasures, to think about something other than what you are doing; and in vain do some pretend that they enjoy pleasures while maintaining faith, chastity and spiritual integrity, when it is contrary to nature to enjoy an excess of pleasures without pleasure. As a warning against this, the apostle said: but the lover of pleasure died alive (1 Tim. 5:6). The bodily senses are like horses running unconsciously, and the soul, like a charioteer, bridles those running with the bit. And just as horses without a ruler are cast into the abyss, so the body, without guidance and control from the soul, is drawn to its own destruction. Another comparison between the soul and the body is made by philosophers: they say that the body is a child, and the soul is a teacher. Why does the historian 15 say: “in the soul we have power, in the body we have a service instrument. We have one thing in common with the gods, another with animals.” So, if the teacher’s prudence does not control the vices of the youth and youth, then all his efforts and aspirations will be directed towards voluptuousness. We can live without the four senses, i.e. without sight, hearing, smell or touch. But without taste and food, the human body cannot exist. Therefore, one should try to take food in such a way and in such quantity that it does not burden the body and does not suppress the freedom of the soul; because you have to eat, and walk, and sleep, and digest, and when the veins are inflated, fight lustful excitement. Wine is an intemperate thing, and drunkenness is reproachful (Proverbs 20:1). Anyone who goes into this will not be wise. Let us also not accept food that is either difficult to digest, or, when consumed, causes regret on our part, as acquired with great difficulty and lost. Cooking vegetables, fruits and peas is both more convenient and does not require the art and expense of a cook; In addition, food of this kind is easily tolerated by the human body, and when taken in moderation (since it is not eaten greedily, as it does not have the properties of irritating the appetite), it is conveniently digested by the stomach. For no one will burden himself with one or two dishes, and simple ones at that, to the point of bloating, which happens as a result of the variety of meats and delicacies, when the dishes smoke with various smells, and, after satisfying their hunger, they drag to themselves as if prisoners. This is where diseases arise from excessive saturation; and many people cure intemperance of appetite by vomiting; – what they put in indecently, they put out even more indecently. Hippocrates, in his Aphorisms, teaches that thick and fat bodies that have reached the full measure of growth are subject to paralysis and the most dangerous types of diseases, unless they are reduced by immediate bloodletting; therefore, their decrease is necessary so that they have something to grow into. For the nature of bodies cannot remain in one state, but must either increase or decrease constantly, and an animal cannot live unless it is capable of increase. That is why the most learned man Galen, the interpreter of Hippocrates, in a medical exhortation says that athletes whose life and art consist of gluttony can neither live long nor be healthy; and their souls are so immersed in an excessive amount of blood and in fat, as if in mud, that they cannot think about anything bright, anything heavenly, but only about meat, about belching, about the gluttony of the stomach. Diogenes claims that tyrants and destroyers of cities, wars with enemies and civil wars appear not because of simple food consisting of vegetables and fruits, but because of meats and delicacies. And what is especially surprising is that the defender of sensual pleasure, Epicurus, filled all his books with talk about vegetables and fruits, and says that one should live on simple food: because meat and delicious dishes are prepared with great trouble and misfortune, and their acquisition is associated with greater torment than eating with pleasure. Our bodies only need food and drink. Where there is water and bread and the like, nature is satisfied. What happens beyond this does not relate to the necessary needs of life, but to vicious carnal pleasure. Drinking and water should satisfy not the passion for pleasure, but thirst and hunger. Those who eat meat also need non-meat food. And those who eat simple food do not feel the need for meat. We cannot devote ourselves to wisdom if we think about the abundance of the table, which requires extreme labor and care. The necessary requirements of nature are soon fulfilled: cold and hunger can be eliminated by simple clothing and food. Why does the apostle say: having food and clothing, we will be content with these (1 Tim. 6:8). The pleasantness and variety of food is an encouragement to selfishness. When you are satisfied with little things, it is a high pleasure for the soul to have the world under your feet and all its power; feasts, voluptuousness, because of which wealth is collected, should be replaced with simple food and balanced with the coarsest tunic. Eliminate intemperance in food and voluptuousness, and no one will seek wealth, which is consumed either in the belly or under the belly. Whoever is sick restores health in no other way than through light food and a moderate lifestyle, which is called λεπτὴ δίαιτα. So, with what food health is restored, it can be preserved; Let no one think that vegetables produce diseases. True, vegetables will not impart the powers of the famous Milo of Croton 16, which are born from meats and are supported by them; but why would a wise man and Christ's philosopher have such strength, which is necessary for athletes and warriors, which, if he had it, would incline him to vices? Meat is considered necessary for health by those who want to abuse voluptuousness, and, immersed in the mud of lust, burn with a constant passion for copulation. A Christian needs health without excessive strength. We should not be embarrassed by the fact that followers of this way of life are rare: because good and faithful friends, modest and self-controlled are also rare, and virtue is always rare. Read about the abstinence of Fabricius, the poverty of the Curius, and even in such a large city you will hardly find a few whom you can imitate. Don't worry if you stop eating meat: the art that bird catchers and hunters learned will not be in vain. We read that some patients with broken joints and gout recovered when, due to the confiscation of property, they were forced to be content with a simple table and poor food. For they were freed from the worries of managing the house and deprived of a luxurious table, which crushes both body and soul. Horace 17 laughs at the passion for food, which, when eaten, leaves repentance: despise pleasures; Pleasure bought by grief is harmful. And in mockery of people devoted to sensual pleasures, having described himself as having grown fat and plump in a pleasant village, he jokes in the following verses: If you want to laugh, look at me, fat and shiny, with the well-groomed skin of a hog from Epicurus’s herd. But even when eating the simplest food, you should avoid satiety. For nothing burdens the soul more than a full and hot belly, turning from side to side and relieved by the release of winds through belching or crackling. Some kind of fasting, or some kind of renewal after fasting, when we are digesting yesterday’s food and our throat serves as a place where material for the cloaca is prepared. Seeking the praise of the longest fast, we devour so much that we are barely able to digest the night of another day. So, it should not be called fasting so much as a hangover, stinking and difficult digestion. Dixarchus, in his books on antiquities and in his description of Greece, says that during the reign of Saturn, i.e. in the golden age, when the earth produced everything in abundance, no one ate meat, but everyone ate the fruits and apples that the earth produced without cultivation. Xenophon, describing in eight books the life of Cyrus, king of the Persians, claims that they eat barley, watercress, salt and rye bread. Both the above-mentioned Xenophon and Theophrastus, as well as almost all Greek writers, testify to the table and moderation of the Lacedaemonians. The Stoic Chaeremon, a most learned man, tells of the ancient Egyptian priests that, putting aside all worldly pursuits and concerns, they constantly stayed in the church and occupied themselves with contemplating the nature of things, the position and course of the stars; never communicated with their wives; since they devoted themselves to divine service, they have never seen their relatives and neighbors, and even their children; they always abstained from meat and wine, both for the sake of subtlety of feeling and because of the dizziness that they suffered from small amounts of food, and especially because of the passionate desires that are born from this type of food and drink. Bread was eaten occasionally so as not to burden the stomach. And when they happened to eat it, they ate crushed hyssop along with it in order to digest relatively heavy food with its help. The butter was eaten only with vegetables, but even then in small quantities, to eliminate the urge to vomit and to soften the harshness of the taste. What can I say, he notes, about birds when they moved away from eggs and milk as from meat? About one they said that it was liquid meat, about the other - that it was blood that had changed color. Their bed was woven from the leaves of a palm tree, which they call baias: instead of a pillow under their heads, they placed a bench on the ground, sloping and beveled on one side, spending two or three days abstaining from food. They dried up the bodily moisture that comes from inactivity and staying in one place through extreme moderation of their lifestyle. Josephus, in the second history of the Jewish captivity, in the eighteenth book of Antiquities and in two books against Appion, describes three Jewish sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. Of these, he extols the latter with extraordinary praise because they always abstained from wives, wine and meat and turned daily fasting into nature. The most learned man Philo published a special book about their life. Neant the Cytic and Asclepiad of Cyprus wrote that in the century when Pygmaleon reigned in the East, meat was not eaten. Eubulus, who recounted the history of Mithras in many books, says that the Persians have three kinds of magicians, of which the first, the most learned and eloquent, do not eat anything except flour and vegetables. In Eleusis it is customary to abstain from birds, fish and certain fruits. Bardesan, a man of Babylon, divided the Indian gymnosophists into two sects, of which he called one Brahmans, the other Samaneans: they observe such abstinence that they eat only the fruits of trees growing near the Ganges River, or the common food of rice or flour; and when the king comes to them, he worships them, and believes that the peace of his region depends on their prayers. Euripides says that the oracles of Jupiter on the island of Crete abstain not only from meat, but also from boiled food. The philosopher Xenocrates wrote that from the laws of Triptolemus, the Athenians had only three commandments left in the Church of Eleusis: one must honor one’s parents; must honor the gods, must not eat meat. Orpheus in his poems expresses a strong aversion to meat. I would bring to our shame the testimony of Pythagoras, Socrates, Antisthenes and others about abstinence, if it were not too long and did not require a special essay. This is the Antisthenes about whom they say that, having taught rhetoric with glory and having heard Socrates, he said to his disciples: go and look for a teacher: because I have already found one. And having immediately sold what he had and distributed it publicly, he left for himself nothing except a small cloak. Witnesses of his poverty and labor are Xenophon in the Symposium and his countless books, some of which he wrote in a philosophical manner, others in a rhetorical manner. His follower was the most famous Diogenes, more powerful than Tsar Alexander, and the conqueror of human nature. When Antisthenes did not accept any of the students and could not drive away the stubborn Diogenes, he finally threatened him with a club if he did not leave. They say that this one stuck his head out to him and said: there is not such a strong stick that could force me to leave you. The satyr, who wrote the stories of famous men, tells that Diogenes wore a double small cloak for the sake of the cold; instead of a wardrobe he had a bag; Due to the weakness of his body, he carried with him a club, with which, being already an old man, he usually supported his limbs, and at that moment, begging from someone and receiving food, he was generally called ἡμερ ό βιος. He lived at the entrances of the gates and under the city porticos. And when he turned around in the barrel, he jokingly said that he had a house that was moving and changing with the seasons (years). Because in the cold season he turned the opening of the barrel to the south, in the hot season to the north, and wherever the sun leaned, Diogenes’ palace turned accordingly. Having a clay vessel for drinking, he once saw that the boy was drinking with a concave hand; They say that he smashed it on the ground, saying: I did not know that nature also has a glass. His virtue and abstinence are shown by his very death. When, already an old man, he went to the Olympic Games, which were celebrated with a large crowd of Greek people: then, as they say, being seized by a fever on the way, he lay down on the edge of the road; and when his friends wanted to lift him onto a working animal or onto a cart, he did not agree, but moving under the shade of a tree, he said: “Move away and go where you are planning; this night will show me either a winner or a loser. If I win over the fever, I will come to the games; If the fever overcomes me, I will go to hell.” And there, strangled throughout the night, he said that he was not so much dying as that through death he was driving away the fever. I presented the example of only one philosopher, so that our handsome men, our fleshy, huge legs barely shading the footprints - whose speeches are in their fists, and syllogisms in their heels, who either do not know the apostolic poverty and the severity of the cross, or despise them - so that they imitate at least the moderation of the pagans. I said this about the judgments and examples of philosophers. Now, moving on to the beginning of the human race, that is, to my area, I will show that for the first time Adam received the commandment in paradise, while eating all the fruits, to abstain from one tree. Heavenly bliss could not take place without abstinence in food. While he was fasting, he was in heaven; he tasted it and was cast out; when he was expelled, he immediately married. Skinny in paradise, he was a virgin, well-fed on earth, he is united in marriage. However, even when he was expelled, he did not immediately receive permission to eat meat; but only tree apples, fruits of crops and herbal vegetables are assigned to him for food, so that even when in exile from paradise, he eats not meat, which was not in paradise, but the likeness of the fruits of paradise. Subsequently, God, seeing that the human heart diligently thinks of evil from youth and that His spirit could not abide on these (men) because the flesh was, condemned the deeds of the flesh to the flood, and to test the gluttony of people, gave them permission to eat meat, so that, seeing everything allowed to themselves, they would not particularly desire what was allowed, so that the commandment would not turn into a reason for crime. However, even then fasting was partly commanded. For as soon as some (animals) are considered clean, others unclean, and the unclean are brought into Noah’s ark in twos, and the clean in an odd number (and in any case, the eating of unclean was eliminated: because otherwise the name unclean would have no basis): then fasting was partly established, since in the exclusion of some there was an instruction about abstinence in general. Why did Esau lose his birthright? Is it because of the food? And he could not atone for his impatience to satisfy his appetite with tears. Expelled from Egypt and about to be brought into a land flowing with honey and milk, the people of Israel demand Egyptian meats, melons and other things. Oh, so that he says, that we might measure out the wounds of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat over the meat pots (Ex. 16:3). And one more thing: who will nourish our meats? Let us remember the fish that are poisonous in the land of Egypt, tuna, and cucumbers, and melons, and garlic, and onions, and more. Now our soul is dried up, nothing like manna before our eyes (Num. 11:4-6). Disdaining the food of angels, they sigh for the meat of Egypt. Moses, who had not eaten for forty days and nights, speaks with God on Mount Sinai, proving even then that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word of God; and the people, being well fed, make idols. He with an empty stomach receives the law written by the finger of God; and this one, sitting down to eat and drink, and rising to play, pours gold into the calf and prefers the Egyptian bull to the greatness of the Lord. The feat of so many days perishes from the satiety of one hour. Moses boldly breaks the tablets: for he knew that drunken people cannot listen to the words of God. The beloved became fat, and became fat, and enlarged, and began to dance, and forsake God who created him, and depart from God his Savior (Deut. 32:15). Why is it commanded in the same Deuteronomy: when you eat and drink, and build beautiful houses, your sheep and oxen, and silver and gold, are multiplied, so that your heart is not lifted up and you forget the Lord your God (Deut. 8:12–14). And so the people ate and their hearts grew fat, so that they could not see with their eyes, not hear with their ears and not understand with their hearts: and the sated and fat people could not bear the face of Moses fasting, and according to the Hebrew original - from the conversation with the horned God. Why did our Lord and Savior, transfigured on the mountain, show Moses and Elijah with him in glory, not for the sake of the indifference of virginity and marriage, as some think, but for the sake of community in fasting. However, Moses and Elijah were actually the image of the law and the prophets, as the Gospel Scripture clearly testifies: the verb was his outcome, which he wanted to die in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). For the law and the prophets speak of the sufferings of the Lord, and not of virginity and marriage. If, out of contention, they say that in the person of Moses there was an appearance of marriage, and in the person of Elijah there was virginity, let them listen to a brief remark that Moses died and was buried, and Elijah was taken on a chariot of fire and became immortal before he died. Yes, and the secondary writing of the tablets (Moses) could not ask for without fasting. What was lost by drunkenness is found by abstinence. From where it is clear that through fasting we can again enter paradise, from which we were expelled for satiety. Exodus talks about the battle against Amalek during the prayer of Moses and the fasting of all the people, which lasted until the evening (Ex. 17). Joshua the son of Nun ordained the sun and the moon; and the victorious army continued to fast for more than one day (Joshua 10). Saul, as it is written in the book of Kings, says: Cursed is he who shall eat bread even until the evening, until I will take vengeance on my enemy. And the man did not eat all the bread, and all the earth dined (1 Samuel 14:24–25). And the obligation of the fast promised to the Lord was such that Jonathan, the author of the victory, was convicted by lot, could not reject the sin of ignorance, raised the hand of his father against himself, and was barely saved thanks to the requests of the people. Elijah, having prepared for a forty-day fast, sees God on Mount Horeb and hears from Him: Why are you here, Elijah? (1 Kings 19:9). This voice is much friendlier than the one known in the book of Genesis: Adam, where are you? (Gen. 3:9). This one horrified the well-fed one who had ruined himself, while this one addressed the fasting slave with kindness. Samuel, having gathered the people in Masfat, strengthened them with a post appointed there and made them stronger than their enemies. The tears, sackcloth and humiliated lifestyle of King Hezekiah crushed, overthrew and defeated the attack of the Assyrians and the power of Sennacherib (Isa. 37). And the city of Nineveh, with a mournful fast, rejected the threatening wrath of the Lord; Sodom and Gomorrah would have appeased him if they wanted to bring repentance and combine tears aided by fasting with repentance. The most wicked king Ahab, by fasting and wearing sackcloth, achieved that he escaped the sentence of God, and the overthrow of his house was postponed until the days of his descendants. Hannah, Elkanah's wife, was worthy to fill her belly with her son, which was empty from (not eating) food. The Magi in Babylon are in danger; all interpreters (of dreams), sorcerers and fortune tellers are being beaten. Daniel and the three youths are rewarded with revelation through fasting; and those fed on hulled fruits turn out to be more beautiful and wiser than those who ate meat from the royal table (Dan. 1 and 2). Then it is written that Daniel fasted for three weeks; he did not eat tasty bread, meat and wine did not enter his mouth, he did not anoint himself with oil. And an angel came to him with the words: Daniel, you are a man worthy of regret (Dan. 9:23). But he who appeared worthy of God's pity, after fasting, was in the ditch terrible for lions. What a beautiful thing that appeases God, tames lions, and terrifies demons! And Habakkuk is sent to him with lunch, which he carried to the reapers (although we did not find this in the Jewish lists). The week spent without food was awarded such a table servant (Dan. 14). David, when he was in danger from his son, committed, after adultery, ἐξομολ ό γεσιν in ashes and fasting, saying: “Ashes have been eaten like bread, and my drink has been dissolved with weeping” (Ps. 101:10). And my knees are weary from fasting (Ps. 109:24). And indeed, I heard then from Nathan: The Lord has taken away this sin from you (2 Samuel 12:13). Samson and Samuel did not drink wine or strong drink. For they were sons of vow, and were conceived through abstinence and fasting. Aaron and the other priests, having to enter the church, did not drink anything that could intoxicate, lest they die (Ex. 10:9). How do we conclude that drunken church workers deserve death? Why is Israel reproached: Give my Nazirites drink of wine (Amos 2:12). Jonadab, the son of Rechab, commanded his sons not to drink wine until forever. When Jeremiah brought them wine for them to drink, but they did not want to drink, the Lord said through the prophet: since you obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, a husband will not fail from the sons of Jonadablih, the son of Rechabel, stand before me all the days (Jer. 35). On the eve of the Gospel, the one-husband Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, is introduced, always fasting; and the Lord of the virgin is conceived by prolonged purity and prolonged fasting. His forerunner and herald, John, eats locusts and wild honey, and not meat: this food lays the foundation for desert life and the cradle of monks. And the Lord himself sanctified his baptism with a fourty-day fast, and taught that demonic arrows cannot be defeated by anything other than prayer and fasting. Cornelius the centurion was honored to receive the Holy Spirit before baptism through almsgiving and frequent fasting. The Apostle Paul, after hunger and thirst and his other labors, after dangers from robbers, shipwrecks, loneliness, also counts frequent fasting. And the disciple Timothy, who suffered from stomach problems and endured many illnesses, advises the moderate use of wine: whoever does not drink water, he says (1 Tim. 5:23). But to whom he says: whoever does not drink water, he obviously drank water before. And he would not have made this concession if frequent illnesses and stomach illness had not required it. It is true that the apostle reproaches those who forbade marriage and commanded abstinence from food, which God created to be eaten with thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4), points to Marcian, Tatian and other heretics who order constant abstinence, desecrating, despising and making disgusting the works of the Creator. But we praise every creation of God; and we prefer (only) leanness to obesity, abstinence to luxury, fasting to satiety. For a man in labor labors for himself, and wears out his own destruction (Prov. 16:26). And from the days of John the Baptist (faster and virgin), the kingdom of heaven was received with need, and the needy delighted it (Matthew 11:12). We are afraid that the coming of the eternal judge will find us, as in the days of the flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, eating and drinking, getting married and giving in marriage. For both the flood and the fire from heaven alike found satiety and marriages, which they destroyed. And it is not surprising if the apostle commands us to buy and eat everything that is sold in the market (1 Cor. 10), when for idolaters, so to speak, and in the temples of idols, as it were, eating things sacrificed to idols, the highest abstinence was only the non-eating of pagan dishes (1 Cor. 10). If he says to the Romans: let not the poisonous one reproach the one who eats, and the non-venomous one do not condemn the one who eats (Rom. 14:3), then he does not affirm the equal importance of fasting and satiety, but speaks against those who, having believed in Christ, have still practiced Judaism, and admonishes the pagan believers so that they do not seduce them with their food, who were still too weak in the faith. Finally, in subsequent words he says the same thing. By this I am informed about Christ Jesus, that nothing is bad in itself, even if he who thinks that it is bad to be, it is bad for him to be. Even if your brother grieves for the sake of food, you no longer walk out of love. Do not destroy him with your waste, for it is worthless that Christ died. Let not your good be blasphemed. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink (Rom. 14:14 et seq.). And lest anyone think that this is talking about fasting, and not Jewish superstition, he argues there: the one who believes eats all the food, but the one who is exhausted eats potions (ibid., v. 2). And one more thing: he judges every day, but he judges every day; Let each one be informed by his own thoughts. If the day of the Lord philosophizes, the day of the Lord does not philosophize, and the day of the Lord does not philosophize. The Lord is poisonous; he gives thanks to God. And he who is not poisonous does not eat of the Lord, and gives thanks to God (Rom. 14:3–6). For those who were still unsteady in the faith and considered some meats clean and others unclean and recognized some difference between one day and another, thinking, for example, that Saturday, new moons and feasts of tabernacles are more holy than other days, are commanded to eat vegetables, which are eaten by everyone indifferently; those who were more steadfast in the faith considered all meats and all days to be the same. And that he dared to say that the Pharisees called the Lord a food drinker and a wine drinker, because He went to wedding feasts and did not disdain community with sinners, then I think that he does this in our favor. This is the Lord - as you think, - Who sanctified the forty-day fast of Christians, Who calls the hungry and thirsty blessed, Who says that He has food not such as the disciples understood, but which will never perish, Who forbids thinking about tomorrow, about Whom although it is said that He was hungry and thirsty, and went often to feasts, but about Whom, excluding the sacrament that he offered as an image of his suffering and confirmation of the truth of his body, it is not written that he delighted the larynx or womb. This is the Lord who tells that the rich man dressed in purple is in hell for feasts, and about poor Lazarus that he is in Abraham’s bosom for famine, who commands us to anoint our heads and wash our faces when we fast, so as to fast not for human glory, but for the Lord, - who, although after the resurrection eats part of the baked fish and honeycombs, but not because of hunger and not for pleasure larynx, but to prove the truth of his body. For whenever He raised a dead man, He ordered him to be given something to eat, so that the resurrection would not seem like a ghost; For this reason, it is written about Lazarus that after his resurrection he shared a meal with the Lord. And by this we do not say that we deny the use of fish and other things among the dishes (if you wish), but the extent to which we prefer virginity to marriage and satiety and meats, fasting and the spirit. And if Peter goes up to the upper room at six o’clock to have dinner, then the occasional need to satisfy hunger does not give grounds for condemning fasting. For since the Lord, in the same way, at the sixth hour, tired, sat down at the well of the Samaritan woman and wanted to drink, is it really therefore that everyone, whether they want or not, should drink at this time? It could have happened that it was either Saturday or Sunday, and after fasting for two and three days, at the sixth hour he became hungry; for I would never have believed that the apostle, if he had dined the day before and was satisfied with the meal, the next day at noon he wanted to eat. If I had dinner the day before and the next day I wanted to eat before lunch, then I don’t think that I was full enough to want to eat so quickly. Further, if God says through Isaiah that this is not the kind of fast He chose, saying: in the days of your fasts you find your wills and languish with all your help; If in judgments and conflicts you fast and beat with your metacarpals the humble, not the fast, I chose (Isa. 58:3 et seq.) and teaches what kind of fast He chose: break your bread for the hungry and bring the bloodless poor into your house: if you see the naked, dress, and do not despise those belonging to your tribe (ibid. v. 7); then by this He did not reject fasting, but showed what kind of fasting He wants: for God is not pleased with a fasting womb, which is disturbed by quarrels, violence and lust. If God does not want fasting, then how does He command in the book of Leviticus that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, all the people should fast until evening, so that whoever does not exhaust his soul must die and be consumed from among his people? Why do the coffins of lust still remain in the desert, where the people devoted to meat fell, and the sensual people, according to the Scriptures, vomited dyes until cholera? Why did the man of God (1 Kings 13), according to whose prophecy the hand of King Jeroboam wither, taste food contrary to the command of God, and was immediately struck down, and the lion who guarded the donkey, without touching her, did not spare the prophet, who had refreshed himself with dinner? Anyone who performed miracles while fasting, having tasted food, is immediately punished for satiety. But Joel also calls: sanctify the fast, preach healing (Joel 1:14), to show that the fast is sanctified by other deeds, and the sanctified fast serves to heal from sins. And just as it is not a criticism of true virginity that virgins follow the devil, so true fasts are the castum (fasting time) of Isis and Cybele and constant abstinence from certain foods, especially when their abstinence from bread is rewarded by gluttony with meat food. And just as the signs that Moses performed were imitated by the signs of the Egyptians, but were not true, for the rod of Moses devoured the rods of the wise men: so by all that the devil does in competition with God, it is not the lie of our faith that is exposed, but our negligence, which we do not want to do what even the people of the world do not recognize as good. “The fourth objection, which is also the last, is that there are two classes - sheep and goats, one of the righteous, the other of sinners: some stand on the right hand, the other on the left, and the righteous hear: come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34), and to sinners it is said: remove from me this curse into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angel (ibid., 41); - that a good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor good fruit, which is why the Savior says to the Jews: you are of your father the devil, and you want to do the lusts of your father (John 8:43). (Jovinian) imagines ten foolish and wise virgins, that five who did not have oil remained outside, and the other five, who had prepared for themselves the light of good deeds, entered into rest with the bridegroom. He goes back to the flood and says: those who were righteous with Noah were saved, but the sinners all perished. In Sodom and Gomorrah, with the exception of two degrees - good and wicked, no difference is found. He who is righteous is torn up, and he who is a sinner is consumed by the same fire. There is one salvation for those who are delivered, one destruction for those who remain. And that there should not be the slightest evasion from justice, Lot’s wife serves as proof. And if, he says, you object to me, why would a righteous person labor in the world or amidst persecution, if there is no advantage or great reward in this, then know that he does this not in order to deserve anything more, but in order not to lose what he has acquired. In Egypt, too, all sinners equally experience ten plagues, and the same darkness covers both master and slave, noble and humble, king and common people. And for the saints of God and the people of Israel there was the same light. And in the Red Sea the righteous cross equally, and the sinners perish equally. Six hundred thousand people, excluding sex and age incapable of war, perish equally in the wilderness, and two who were equal in righteousness are equally delivered. Over the course of forty years, all Israel struggles and dies in the same way. Gomor of manna serves as the same measure of food for everyone; clothes do not wear out equally, hair does not grow in size, beards do not grow for everyone at all, shoes are preserved equally for everyone. My feet didn't get burned; the food tasted the same in everyone's mouth. They went to the same camp with equal feat and reward. Every Jew has the same Passover, the same Feast of Tabernacles, the same Sabbath, the same new moons. In the seventh year of absolution, release is made without distinction of persons, and in the year of jubilee all debts are cancelled, and the seller returns to his former property.” And the Gospel parable of the sower, in which on the good land the fruit grows a hundred, sixty and thirty times, and on the contrary on the bad land, a threefold difference in barrenness is shown, he divides it into two categories - the good land and the bad. And just as the apostle for the abandonment of children and wives promises a hundredfold reward in one Gospel, and a sevenfold one in the other, and eternal life in the future (Matthew 19; Mark 10; Luke 18), and there is no difference between the hundredfold and sevenfold: so in this place, where the fertility of this earth is spoken of, the number does not make a difference, especially when the Evangelist Mark puts the numbers the other way around - thirty, sixty and one hundred. The Lord says: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and from him (John 6:55). Consequently, just as Christ abides in us without any difference of degree, so we abide in Christ without degree. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him (John 14:23). He who is righteous loves him; whomever he loves, the Father and the Son come to him and dwell in his dwelling: and where there is such an inhabitant, there, I think, there is nothing lacking for the guest. And if he says: in my Father’s house there are many abodes (John 14:2), then he does not indicate the various abodes in the kingdom of heaven, but the number of churches throughout the world, since the church remains one in seven churches. I’m going, he says, to prepare a place for you (ibid., 2), not a place. If this promise belongs to the twelve apostles themselves, then Paul is excluded from this place, and the chosen vessel will be recognized as superfluous and unworthy. John and James did not receive what they asked for, because they asked more than others, and yet their dignity was not diminished, for they were equal to the other apostles. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19); the church, he says, is, and not churches, to show that God dwells equally in everyone. I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe their words in Me: as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in us. The glory that you gave to Me, I gave to them, and I loved them, just as you loved Me (John 17:20 et seq.). And just as we, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, are one God, so let there be one people in them, that is, as if beloved children, participating in the divine nature. Bride, sister, mother, and no matter what names you come up with, everything is a collection of one church, which is never without a groom, brother, son. He has one faith and does not wander into different dogmas, and is not torn by heresies. She remains a virgin. Wherever the Lamb goes, he follows Him: one knows the song of Christ. “And if, he says, you object to me: a star differs from a star in glory, then you will hear that a star differs from a star - that means: the spiritual differ from the carnal. We love all members equally; We prefer neither eyes to fingers, nor fingers to ears, but if one is lost, all members suffer. We enter this world in the same way, and we leave it in the same way. One Adam is earthly, the other is heavenly. He who is in the earthly will be on the right hand and will perish, and he who is in the heavenly will be on the right hand and will be saved. Whoever tells his brother that he is crazy and has cancer will be guilty of Gehenna. And whoever is a murderer and adulterer will likewise be sent to Gehenna. During the persecution, whether someone is burned, strangled, beheaded, whether he runs away from the fatherland or dies in prison - although there are different types of feats, there is one crown of victory. There is no difference between the brother who was always with his father and who subsequently returned repentant. Those who worked from the first hour, and from the third, and from the sixth, and from the ninth, and from the eleventh are given equal amounts of one denarius, and what is most surprising is that the reward begins with those who worked less in the vineyard.” By these and similar testimonies of the divine Scriptures, which a clever questioner tilts in favor of his perverse opinion, who will not be tempted even among God’s elect? And that the Apostle John says that many Antichrists have appeared (1 John 2), this is the true preaching of the Antichrist, which does not posit any difference between John himself and the last repentant. At the same time, I marvel at how this writhing serpent and our Proteus miraculously changes into different forms. For he who is an Epicurean in regard to copulation and satiety suddenly becomes a Stoic in regard to reward for merit. Jerusalem changes to Citium, Judea to Cyprus, Christ to Zeno. If you cannot deviate in the slightest from virtues and all sins are equal, if the one who stole the bread when he was hungry and the one who killed the man are equally guilty: then you too are guilty of the greatest crimes. It is a completely different matter if you say that you do not have even the slightest sins, and while all the apostles and prophets and saints, in accordance with what I stated in the second objection, are distressed in the consciousness of their sinfulness, you alone are magnified with righteousness. Before you were barefoot; now he is not only shod, but also dressed. Then you dressed in a shaggy tunic, in a black underwear, you were dirty and poor, and your hands were calloused from work; now you walk dressed in linen and silk, and in Atrebate and Laodicean dress. The cheeks are flushed, the skin is glossy, the hair on the back of the head and forehead is tidied up in a circle; The belly becomes fuller, the shoulders rise, the neck gets thicker, and mumbled words can barely be filtered out of the fat cheekbones. Of course, with such a variety of food and conversation, there must be a sin here or there. I am not saying that there is sin in food and clothing, but that variety and change for the worse are very close to censure; and what is condemned is far from virtue; what is far from virtue passes into the realm of vice; what is recognized as vicious is associated with sin; and what is sin, then, according to your opinion, turns out to be in the category of goats. So, either return to your former state, so that you can be a sheep on the right hand; or, if you have changed your previous way of thinking through unlawful repentance, then willy-nilly, even though you gain a beard, you will be among the goats. But what is the use of calling the crooked crooked and showing the inconstancy of the accuser when it is necessary to refute a number of objections? That there are sheep and goats on the right hand and on the left, that there is a class of righteous and sinners, we do not deny this. That a good tree does not produce bad fruit, nor good fruit, no one doubts. We also divide the ten wise and holy virgins into good and evil. That during the flood the righteous were saved, and the sinners were drowned by the waters - this is not unknown to us. That in Sodom and Gomorrah the righteous were taken away and the wicked were destroyed by fire is obvious to everyone. We also know that Egypt was struck with ten plagues, but Israel remained unharmed. That the righteous crossed the Red Sea, and Pharaoh and his army were drowned - even children sing about this in schools. That six hundred thousand fell in the wilderness for unbelief, and only two entered into the land of promise, the Scripture teaches about this, as well as about other things that you presented, even before the workers of the vineyard, regarding two classes of good and evil. But what is it that you assert that, while there is a division between the good and the evil, there is no difference between the good or, on the contrary, the evil, and there is no difference in the cattle - whether one is a good ram or a bad sheep, whether they have wool of the first or second grade, whether the cattle are scabby and sick, or healthy and playful - especially when Ezekiel, with his prophetic authority, points to the intelligent sheep and the difference between one and the other cattle, saying: Behold, I will judge between the sheep and the ewe, and the ram and the goat, and between the strong sheep and the weak sheep. With your ribs and braids you cut and with your horns the gore and every weak thing, until I have been driven out (Ezek. 34:17-21). And so that we would know what kind of cattle they are, he immediately added: “But you, my flocks and the sheep of my pasture, are people.” Therefore, it will be the same thing for Paul and the repentant one who slept with his father’s wife, because he was received into the church after repentance, and since he is at the right hand with Paul, then he will shine with the same glory as the apostle? And how is it that in the field until the harvest at the end of the world both tares and wheat grow together? For what purpose are good and evil fish kept in the waters of Christ and the net of the Gospel? Why are there different animals in the prototype of the church - Noah's Ark, and different branches according to the difference in merit? Why did the queen appear at the right hand of the Lord in gilded robes, clothed in diversity? Why did Joseph, in the image of Christ, have a multi-colored tunic? Why does the apostle say to the Romans: to whom God has divided the measure of faith? For in one body there are many uds, imams, but all uds do not do the same things: similarly, we are many in one body in Christ, but one udds one another. Having the gifts according to the grace given to us is different: if it is prophecy, according to the measure of faith; if it is ministry, for service; if it is teaching, for doctrine; if it is comforting; And in another place: he judges day by day, but he judges every day: let each one be informed by his thoughts (Rom. 14:5) and to the Corinthians: I planted, Apollos watered, but God will increase. Likewise, neither plant anything nor solder it, but God brings it back. Planting and soldering are one thing; each one will receive his reward according to his labor. For we are God’s helpers: God’s acquisition, God’s building naturally (1 Cor. 3:6–9). And again: by the grace of God given to me, for the wise architect lays the foundation, and also edifies. No one can lay any other foundation than the one who lies down, who is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, honorable stone, wood, hay, reeds: everyone’s work will be revealed: the day will reveal it, it will be revealed before fire; and everyone’s work, as it is, will be tempted by fire. And even if his work endures, he will accept the reward. But his work will be burned up, it will be lost; he himself will be saved like by fire (1 Cor. 3:10-15). If the one whose work was burned and perished, and who suffered damage from his labor, although he will lose the reward for his labor, he himself will be saved, but not without the test of fire: then the one whose work assigned to him will remain, will be saved without the test of fire, and between one and the other salvation, of course, there will be some difference. Also in another place: let man not perceive us as servants of Christ and builders of the mysteries of God. And everything else is sought in the builders, so that he who is faithful may find it (1 Cor. 4:1-2). Do you want to know that there is a great difference between one builder and another - I am not talking about good and evil, but from the good ones who stand on the right hand? Listen to this: Do you not know that those who make holy things eat from the sanctuary? and those who serve the altar share with the altar; Thus the Lord commanded those who preach the gospel to live by the gospel. I have not created a single thing from these; This is not written, but this will be about me: it would be better for me to die than for anyone to waste my praise. Even if I preach the gospel, I have no praise: I am in need; woe is me, if I do not preach the gospel. If I do this willingly, I reward the imam; if I do it unwillingly, the building is betrayed by me. Why the hell is there a bribe; Let me preach the gospel without compensation and spread the gospel of Christ, so that I don’t do it in my area in the gospel. I am free from everyone; I have made myself enslaved to everyone, so that I may gain great abundance (1 Cor. 9:13 et seq.). Can you really say that those who live from the gospel and receive a portion from the sacrifices sin? Of course not, for the Lord has determined that those who preach the Gospel should live from the Gospel, but the apostle, who does not use this permission, but works with his own hands so as not to burden anyone, and works day and night and serves those with him, of course, does this so that by working more he will receive some more rewards. Let's move on to the rest. The divisions of gifts are the essence, and the same is the spirit; and the divisions of ministries are the essence, and the same is God, acting all in all. The manifestation of the spirit is given for the benefit of everyone (1 Cor. 12:4 et seq.). And again: just as the body is one and has many parts, all the parts of one body, being many, are one body: so is Christ (ibid., v. 12). But so that you do not say that in one body the different members have the same meaning, he immediately depicts the degrees of the church and says: God has placed them in the church first, first the apostles, second the prophets, third the teachers, then the powers, the same granting of healings, intercession, government, birth of tongues. Food for all the apostles; food are all prophets; food all teachers; food with all your strength; food, all gifts have healing; food all languages ​​speak; food everyone says; Be zealous for great gifts, and even after excellence I will show you the way (1 Cor. 12:28 et seq.). And after a lengthy discussion about the virtues of love, he added: if prophecies are abolished; if the pagans are silent; if reason is destroyed. In part we understand, and in part we prophesy: ​​when the perfect comes, then the hedgehog in part will be done away with (1 Cor. 13:8-10) And further: now remain faith, hope, love, these three: greater than these are loves (v. 13). Hold on to love, be zealous for the spiritual, and above all let you prophesy (1 Cor. 14:1). And again: I want you all to speak in tongues, but rather let you prophesy: ​​rather you should prophesy than speak in tongues (v. 5). And again: I thank my God, speaking in tongues above all of you (v. 18). Where there are different gifts, and where one is greater, another is less, and all are called spiritual, there, although all the sheep stand on the right hand, there is some difference between one and the other sheep. Although out of humility the Apostle Paul says: I am one of the apostles; those who are not worthy to be called an apostle have persecuted the church of God. It is by the grace of God that I am: and His grace, which is in me, was not in vain, but I labored more than all of them: not I, but the grace of God, which is with me (1 Cor. 15:9-10), however, in that it humbles itself, it shows that the apostles can be some lesser, others greater, and of course, God is not unjust to forget him, called a chosen vessel and the one who has worked the most, and for unequal merit to give the same reward. From here we read: just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will live, each in his own order (1 Cor. 15:22–23). If everyone is resurrected in his own order, then without a doubt the rewards of those resurrected are different. Not all flesh is flesh: but there is some flesh by man, and some flesh by cattle, and another by fish, and another by birds. Both the heavenly body and the earthly body: but one is the glory of the heavenly, and another is the glory of the earth. Another is the glory of the sun, and another is the glory of the moon, and another is the glory of the stars; star differs from star in glory. Likewise the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:39 et seq.). You, a learned interpreter, explained this in the sense that the spiritual are different from the carnal. Consequently, there will be both spiritual and carnal in heaven, and not only your sheep, but also your goats will enter the kingdom of heaven. The star, he says, differs from the star in glory: not sheep and goats, but sheep and sheep, that is, star and star. Finally, another, he says, glory to the sun, and another glory to the moon. So that you do not assert that the star and the star mean the entire totality of the human race, you placed the sun and the moon, which you, of course, will not count among the goats. In the same way, he says, there will be a resurrection of the dead, that the righteous will shine with the brilliance of the sun, those following them in degree will shine with the light of the moon, so that one will be the morning star, another Arcturus, another Orion, and that Mazurof and other stars, the consecrated names of which are contained in the book of Job. For all of us, he says, it is fitting for us to appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that everyone may receive what he has done with his body, either good or evil (2 Cor. 5:10). And lest you somehow say that the good appear at the Judgment Seat of Christ to receive good, and the evil to receive evil, in the same epistle he teaches: sow with poverty, and you will reap with poverty; and he who sows with blessing, with blessing, he will also reap (2 Cor. 9:6). Of course, both he who sows less and he who sows more belong to the right side; and although the crops are of the same kind, nevertheless they differ in quantity and number. The same Paul writes to the Ephesians: let the manifold wisdom of God now be made manifest in the heavenly churches as the ruler and authority (Eph. 3:10). Do you see that in the various exploits of the church the different and varied grace of God is proclaimed? And in the same message: to the only one among us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s giving (Eph. 4:7) not because the measure of Christ is different, but His grace is poured in as much as we are able to accommodate. So it is in vain that you imagine sheep and goats, five and five virgins, Egyptians and Israelites, and the like, for the reward is not in the present, but in the future. Therefore, the day of judgment is promised at the end of the age, because now there is no judgment. For it is unreasonable to call this day the last day of judgment, if God judges now. Now we are sailing on the sea, struggling, fighting, in order to finally reach the pier, receive a crown, and triumph. And you perversely and cunningly present the life of the present age as proof of the life of the future, when without a doubt here is injustice, and there is justice, until we enter the sanctuary of God and comprehend the final destinies of both lives. Does a saint die differently and a sinner die differently? For those sailing on the same sea, is it not the same calm and the same storm? Are robbers and martyrs killed differently? Otherwise, will children be born from fornication and harlots, and otherwise from pure marriages? Of course, the Lord and the thieves were crucified according to the same judgment. If the judgment of both this and the next century is the same, then those who were equally crucified here will receive the same in the future. Paul and those who imprisoned him sail together, weather the storm together, and together, after the ship is destroyed by the waves, they come ashore. You cannot deny that the merits of the prisoner and those who imprisoned are different: how is it that the apostle and the soldiers suffer shipwreck in the same way? Afterwards the apostle talks about the revelation and says that those in the ship were given to him from the Lord. Is it possible that the one who is given and those who are given are the same in merit? Ten saints can rescue a city from destruction. Lot and his daughters were removed from the fire; their sons-in-law would have been saved if they had wanted to get out. And of course there is a big difference between Lot and his sons-in-law. Segor, one of the five cities, is delivered, and this city, which had the same merits and was subject to the same sentence as Sodom and Gomorrah, Adam and Seboi, is delivered through the prayers of the saint. Here, the merits of Lot and Segor are different, and yet they are equally delivered from the fire. The robbers, who in the absence of David devastated Sikeleg and took their wives and children as prey, are killed on the third day in the field, and four hundred people escape on camels. Say that there was any difference between those killed and those who could escape. We read in the Gospel that the tower of Siloam fell on eighteen people and, falling over them, killed them. Of course, according to the thought of the Lord, these were not only sinners, but were punished to intimidate others, so that after punishing the wicked, the foolish would become wiser. If the punishment of all sinners is the same, then unjustly one is killed and the death of one is admonished by the other. You object to me that all the Israelites had the same omer of manna and the same measure, and clothing and hair, and beard and shoes, as if we do not equally receive the body of Christ. The sanctification in the sacraments of both master and slave, noble and ignoble, king and warrior is the same, although, in accordance with the merits of those who receive, what is in itself the same is different. For whoever eats and drinks unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:27). Is it really because Judas drinks from the same cup from which the other apostles did that he will receive the same reward as the others? If you don’t want to take the sacrament into account, we all, of course, live equally, we breathe the same air, we are watered by the same moisture, we feed on the same food. If edible products are changed by the art of cooks for the better and something more pleasant is produced from seasonings, then this kind of food satisfies not nature, but voluptuousness. We feel hunger in the same way, we feel the cold in the same way: we writhe in the same way from the cold, we relax from the heat and warmth. And the sun and the moon and the whole chorus of stars and the rains and the world equally complete their course for us, and according to the Gospel we are all watered by the same rains - good and evil, righteous and unrighteous. If present phenomena are images of future ones, then the sun of truth will equally rise for the righteous and sinners, the wicked and the saints, Christians and Jews and pagans, when St. Scripture says: “But the sun of righteousness will rise to those who fear the Lord” (Mal. 1). If it rises for those who fear, it will set for those who fear not and false prophets. The sheep standing at the right hand are brought into the kingdom of heaven, the goats are cast into hell. This parable does not depict the difference in merit between sheep or, on the contrary, between goats, but makes a difference only between sheep and goats. For not everything is taught in all places, but each similitude relates to that to which it is likened. Likewise, ten virgins serve as an image not of the entire human race, but only of the caring and lazy, some of whom constantly await the coming of the Lord, others, indulging in sleep and carelessness, do not think about the future judgment. Therefore, at the end of the parable he says: watch, you don’t know the hour of the day (Matthew 25:13). If Noah was saved in the flood, and the whole world perished, then everyone was flesh and therefore perished. Either admit that the merits of the sons of Noah and Noah, for whose sake his sons were delivered, were not the same - or put the accursed Ham in the same place in which his father was, since he was saved from the flood together. In the suffering of Christ, everyone turned away, together they became indecent and there was not one who would do good, not even one. Do you therefore dare to say that Peter and the other apostles, who fled, denied Christ to the same extent as Caiaphas and the Pharisees and the people who shouted: crucify, crucify Him? And not to talk about the apostles, will Annas and Caiaphas and Judas the traitor really seem to you guilty of the same crime as Pilate, who against his will was forced to pronounce judgment on the Lord? The higher the dignity of Judas, the greater his crime, and the greater the crime, the greater the punishment, for the most severe judgment prevails (Wis. 6:5). A bad tree does not produce good fruit, nor bad fruit. If this is so, then answer me, how did Paul, who was an evil tree, persecuting the Church of Christ, subsequently create good fruits, and Judas, who was a good tree, who performed miracles with the apostles, subsequently turned into a traitor and created evil fruits? Consequently, neither a good tree produces bad fruit, nor an evil tree good, as long as it remains in its goodness or malignancy. Further, that every Jew celebrates the Passover equally and in the seventh year is made free, and in the jubilee, that is, the fiftieth year, all possessions pass to the owners - this is not said about the present, but about the future, because we, who are in slavery for six days of this century, on the seventh day, on the true and eternal Saturday, will be free, if, however, we desire to be free while we are still enslaved in this world. And if we do not wish, our ear will be pierced as evidence of disobedience, and with our wife and children, whom we preferred to freedom, that is, with the flesh and its deeds, we will be in grave slavery. And the parable of the sower, which represents on both sides fruits of a threefold kind, and the fact that, according to the Apostle, on the foundation of Christ, one creates gold, silver, precious stones, the other - wood, hay, straw, as well as the fact that in a great house there are various vessels - this is clearly obvious and wanting to contradict this is characteristic only of the most obvious shamelessness. However, so that he does not delight in his lies and does not present the example of the apostles for reinterpreting the hundredth, sixtieth and thirtieth numbers, let him know that in Matthew and Mark the apostles, who left everything of theirs, are promised a hundredfold (retribution), and in the Gospel of Luke much more, i.e. πολύ πλείονα, and absolutely in none The Gospel is not written instead of one hundred and seven - and that he turns out to be guilty of either distortion or ignorance; - which does not serve to our disadvantage if in one Gospel the count begins with a hundred, and in another with thirty, since all Scripture, especially the old one, first gives a smaller number and thus gradually ascends to a larger one. For example, it says that so-and-so was five and seventy and a hundred years old, although the previously stated five and seventy could not be more than a hundred. If you do not accept the differences in numbers on the good side - one hundred, sixty and thirty, then you will not accept the differences on the bad side, and the same deficiency will be in the seed that fell along the road, and on the stone, and among the thorns. If both these three genera, for better or worse, are equivalent, then it was unreasonable to list six types instead of two, especially when in Matthew and Luke the Savior, according to the presentation of the parable, always added: having ears to hear, let him hear (Matthew 11:15, 13:9; Mark 4:9; Luke 8:18, 14:35). It is in vain to call for mysterious understanding where there is nothing that contains the hidden. What do you think, that if the Father and the Son make an abode among believers, and where Christ dwells, there cannot be anything missing, then I think that otherwise Christ dwelt in the Corinthians, otherwise in the Ephesians, i.e. differently in those whom the Apostle Paul reproached for many sins, and differently in those to whom he expounded unknown mysteries from the ages; otherwise in Titus and Timothy, and differently in Paul. Among those born of women, no one greater than John the Baptist has risen. And where a larger one is called, there must be other smaller ones: there is more of it in the kingdom of heaven. So you see that there is a greater one in heaven, and also between the angels and between the invisible creatures there is a manifold and endless difference. Why do the apostles say: Lord, add faith to us (Luke 17:5), if the measure is the same for everyone? And the Lord said to the disciple: You of little faith, why did you doubt (Matthew 14:31)? And in Jeremiah we read about the future kingdom: these days are coming, says the Lord, and I will proclaim to the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant that their father commanded (Jer. 31:31-32). And a little later: I will give my law in their wombs and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God and they will be my people. And every man shall not teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, Know the Lord, for all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them (ibid., vv. 33, 34). From the context of this place it is obvious that the prophet depicts the future kingdom of Christ, and on what basis will there be a lesser and a greater there if everyone is equal? Of course, on the one according to which the Gospel says: “Whoever teaches and does, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever teaches and does not do it will be the least” (Matthew 5:19). The Savior at the dinner instructs us to take the lowest place, so that when the elder comes, we will not be removed from the highest place in shame (Luke 14). If we cannot fall, but are only strengthened through repentance, then what does this ladder in Bethel mean, along which the angels descending from heaven to earth ascend and descend? Of course, they stood on the right hand between the sheep while they were there. Angels descend from heaven, and Jovinian does not fear for their possessions! And who can refrain from laughing at the fact that he recognizes many of the Father’s abodes as churches scattered throughout the world, when Scripture, according to the Gospel of John, most obviously teaches that the Lord was not talking about the number of churches, but about the heavenly abodes, about the eternal tabernacles that the prophet desired? In the house, He says, of my Father there are many abodes: otherwise, I would say to you: I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be (John 14:2-3). The place and abodes that Christ says He prepares for the apostles are, of course, in the house of the Father, i.e. in the kingdom of heaven, and not on earth, on which He currently left the apostles. At the same time, you need to pay attention to the meaning of Scripture: I would say, he says, to you that I am going and will prepare a place for you, if the Father did not have many mansions, i.e. if each of you had not prepared a place for himself, not by the grace of God, but by his own deeds; and therefore it is not My business to prepare, but yours, for the prepared place, which he lost by his crime, did not bring any benefit to Judas. In relation to this meaning, one must also understand what is said to the sons of Zebedee, one of whom wanted to sit on the left hand, and the other on the right hand: For I have drunk my cup and with baptism, with it I am baptized, and I am baptized; ). Giving is not the work of the Son: how can preparing is the work of the Father? He says that in heaven there are prepared various and very many mansions for very many and different virtues, which (mansions) are received not by persons, but by deeds. Therefore, in vain do you ask from Me what is in your power - what My Father has prepared for those who will rise to such glory by virtues worthy of it. What he says further: “again I will come and take you to Myself, that where I am you also may be” (John 14:3), speaks directly to the apostles, about whom it is written in another place: “For You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in us” (John 17:21), who have believed, who are perfect, who can say: “My portion is the Lord” (Ps. 142:6). And if there are not very many monasteries, then how is it that in the Old Testament and in the new the high priest occupies a different place, another priests, another Levites, another doorkeepers, and another church ministers? And in the book of Ezekiel, where the structure of the future church and heavenly Jerusalem is depicted, the priests who sinned are relegated to servants and doorkeepers, and although they are in the church of God, that is, on the right hand, however, they are not among the best, but among the lesser sheep. And in that river that comes out of the church and waters the salty sea and revives everything, many kinds of fish are depicted. Why in the kingdom of heaven are there Archangels, Angels, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Cherubim and Seraphim and every name named not only in the present age, but also in the future? A difference in names has no basis if there is no difference in merit. The Archangel is, of course, the (chief) of other lesser angels. Archangels and Powers and Dominions have others (spirits) over whom they exercise their power and over whom, as subordinates, they dominate. Such is the order in heaven in divine government, so that, according to custom, he would not laugh and mock us if we pointed to the emperor, prefects and counts, and tribunes and centurions and combatants and other military ranks. And that he pointed to the words: or you do not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit living in you (1 Cor. 6:19), this is unfounded, since Divine Scripture usually names both the singular in the plural and the plural in the singular; however, let him know that in the church itself there are many rooms, there is an outer courtyard, there is an inner courtyard, there is a vestibule, there is a sanctuary, there is a holy of holies. There are kitchens in the church, there are also cellars, there is a place for vices, and storage rooms for vessels. So in the church of our body there are various merits. God does not dwell equally in everyone; He does not pour into everyone in the same measure. It is taken away from the spirit of Moses and given to seventy elders. I think that the abundance of water in the river is different, and the abundance in streams is different. The sublime spirit of Elijah is given to Elisha: therefore, the sublime grace also performed great miracles. The living one raised the dead, and the dead the dead; he begged hunger for the people, and this one brought hostile (to the enemies) troops to the besieged city in one day. Let this be said: Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you (1 Cor. 6:19) he spoke of the whole church of believers, who, equally united, constitute one body of Christ. Only in this case is a distinction made in the body - who is worthy of the feet of Christ, who is the head; some are His eyes, some are His hands. This is also indicated by two women in the Gospel - a penitent and a saint, of whom one holds the feet (of the Lord), the other the head, although some think that it was one woman, and that the one who first started from the feet, the same one reached the head. But also the fact that he objected: I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe their words for their sake in Me, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You, that they also may be one in us, and that the whole Christian people is one in God as the most beloved sons, partakers of the divine nature, then we have already said above, and now we need to state this in more detail, - that we are one in the Father and the Son not by nature, but by grace. For the human soul and God are not of the same substance (as the Manichaeans usually say). But you loved them, he says, as you loved Me. So you see that if we are accepted into the communion of His nature, then this is not a work of nature, but of grace, and therefore the Father loves us because He loved the Son, and the members enjoy love only in the body. The little ones received Him, and gave them the power to become children of God, believing in His name, who were not born of blood, nor of carnal lust, nor of manly lust, but of God (John 1:12). The Word became flesh, so that we might pass from the flesh into the Word. Neither the Word ceased to be what it was, nor did man lose the being in which he was born. Glory is exalted without change of nature. Do you want to know how we are made one with Christ? Let the organizer of this Himself instruct you. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me, and I live for the Father’s sake: he too will live for My sake. This is the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:55 et seq.). But John the Evangelist, who drew wisdom from the Persians of Christ, corresponds to the same words, saying: Of this we understand that we abide in Him, and He in us, as He has given us of His Spirit to eat. Even if you confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and in God (1 Jn. 4:13, 15). If you believe in Christ, as the apostles believed, you become one body with them in Christ. And if it is absurd to assimilate their faith and works to you, who do not have such faith and works, then you will not be able to have the same place. Further, when you say that bride, sister, mother and all such names refer to one church and these names designate all believers, this serves against you. For if the church has one rank and it does not have many members in one body, then why should it be called bride, sister or mother, if not because for some it is bride, for others sister, for others mother? Although everyone stands at the right hand, one stands as a groom, another as a brother, and a third as a son. My children, he says, in my image I am sick, until Christ is imagined in you (Gal. 4:19). Do you really think that the merit of those who are born and the one who gives birth is the same? That is why you foolishly decided to assert that we love all members equally, and do not prefer an eye to a finger, or a hand to an ear, but with the loss of each of the members there is a common illness - it is stupid when the apostle teaches to the Corinthians that some members are more honorable, others are more modest, and those who are more modest are surrounded by greater honor, and those who are honest with themselves do not need our care (1 Cor. 12:22-23 ). Do you really place in the same category and consider the mouth and the stomach, the eyes and the passages through which droppings and urine are cast to be of equal dignity? “The lamp of your body,” he says, “is your eye. If the eye is blind, the whole body will be in darkness” (Luke 11:34). If you cut off a finger, the end of an ear, then although there is pain, there is not such harm, not the same disgrace with pain that happens if you gouge out your eyes, tear out your nostrils, cut your lips. We can live without some members, but we absolutely cannot live without others. There are light sins, and there are serious ones. Ten thousand talents must be another matter, and a quadrant must be another matter. We will be guilty for both idle speech and adultery; but it is not the same thing to be ashamed and to endure torment, to blush and suffer for a long time. Do you think I'm speaking my mind? Listen to the Apostle John: “Whoever knows that his brother is sinning a sin that does not lead to death, let him ask, and life will be given to him who sins not leading to death. And whoever sins unto death, who will pray for him? (1 John 5:16). You see that if we pray for lesser sins, we receive forgiveness; if for large ones, then fulfilling the request is difficult and there is a big difference between some sins and others. Therefore, about the people of Israel, since they sinned to the point of death, it is said to Jeremiah: do not pray for these people and do not ask to be shown mercy to them and do not pray, come to Me for them, for I will not hear you (Jer. 7:16). And if we are all the same and we enter the world and leave the world, and this is a foretelling of the future: then it follows that all of us, both righteous and sinners, will be the same before God, since now we will be born and die in the same way. If you insist that there are two Adams - one earthly, the other heavenly, and those who were in the earthly stand on the left side and those who were in the heavenly - on the right hand: then answer me if I ask you about the two brothers. Was Esau in the earthly (Adam), or in the heavenly? No one doubts that you will answer that he was in the earthly. Jacob was in what? You will say, of course, in heaven. How then was he in heavenly things when Christ had not yet come in the flesh, who is called the second and heavenly Adam? So, you will either have to count everyone who lived before the incarnation of Christ in the first Adam, and therefore the righteous will be in the earthly man and between your goats, or if you wickedly place Isaac in the same place as Ishmael, in the same place as Jacob, in the same place as Esau, in the same place as in the saints and sinners: then the last Adam will have to be counted from the time when Christ was born of the Virgin and the argument of the two Adams will not serve in favor of your sheep and goats, because we deny that in the first Adam there were both sheep and goats, and in one and the same man some stood on the right hand, others on the left. For there is royal death from Adam even to Moses and upon those who have not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s crime (Rom. 5:14). And regarding the fact that you are trying to prove that slander and murder, cancer and adultery, and idle speech and wickedness are punished equally - the answer has already been given to you above and now I will answer. Either say that you are not a sinner, so as not to be guilty of Gehenna, or if you are a sinner, then for a minor offense you will be taken to hell. The lips, he says, kill the soul (Wis. 1:11). I suspect that someday you, as a man, lied, for every man is a lie (Ps. 115:2), and God alone is true, and will be justified in his words and will be victorious when he judges (Ps. 50). So, either you must not be a man so as not to be deceitful, or, if, as a man, you are deceitful; then you will suffer torment with parricides and adulterers. For there is no difference between sins, and those whom you raise from bottom to top will not be so grateful to you as those whom you cast into utter darkness for an easy and ordinary sin will be dissatisfied. And if during the persecution both the one who is strangled and beheaded, and the one who fled (from the fatherland) and who died in prison during various types of feat receive the same crown of victory, then this also serves in our favor. For in the martyr the will is crowned, from which death itself is born. My job is to oppose myself to the rage of the pagans and not to renounce the Lord; otherwise it is already in their will whether to behead me, or burn me, or imprison me, or use various types of executions. If I run away and die in the desert, the crown of the dying will not be the same, because Christ is not the same as the cause of death. And what you say is that there is absolutely no difference between the brother who was always with his father and the one who later, having repented, was accepted by him, then to this, if you want, I add that one drachma, lost and found, was added to the others, and that one sheep, which the good shepherd, leaving ninety-nine sheep, found and brought, replenished the hundredfold number. But it’s another thing to be repentant and beg with tears for forgiveness, and another thing to always be with your father. Therefore, through Ezekiel, the shepherd and father said to the returned sheep and the once prodigal son: And I will establish My covenant with you to hang, as I am the Lord: so that you will remember and be humbled, and no one will open your mouth at the sight of your dishonor, for I will always be merciful to you according to all the things that you have done (Ezek. 16:62–63 ). In order for the repentant to receive no less just reward, it is enough for them, instead of any punishment, only shame. “And you will remember your evil ways, and all the crimes by which you have been defiled, and you will be disgusted in your own eyes in all your wickedness that you have committed; and you will know that I am the Lord when I bless you for my name’s sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your most evil iniquities” (dit.). The son is also reproved by his father because he is jealous of his brother’s salvation and that, while the angels rejoice in heaven, he is tormented by envy. However, the comparison of two brothers, the good and the prodigal, does not refer to the merits of the entire human race, but to the persons of either the Jew and the Christian, or the saints and the penitents. I dedicated a little book about this parable to Bishop Damasus when he was still alive. Further, if the workers of the first hour, and the third, and the sixth, and the ninth are given one denarius, and the reward begins with those who later began to work in the vineyard: then here too people are not depicted from the same time and century, but the mysteries of various callings from the beginning of the world to the end are presented. In the first hour Abel and Seth are called, in the third Enoch and Noah; in the sixth, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in the ninth, Moses and the prophets; to the eleventh nation of the pagans: he is the first to be given a reward, because, having believed in the crucified Lord, through the difficulty of faith he deserved the greatness of the rewards: many kings and prophets wanted to see what we see, and did not see. And one denarius is not the same reward, but the same life and the same liberation from Gehenna. However, just as with sovereign forgiveness those guilty of various crimes are released from prison and everyone, according to their work or occupation, achieves one or another state in life: so the denarius, as the forgiveness of the true Master, leads everyone out of prison through baptism. It is up to us to work, according to the differences in virtues, to prepare for ourselves various rewards. Until now, we have answered questions in parts. The following speech will be a general answer to everything. The Lord tells his disciples: “Whoever wants to be greatest among you, let him be the least of all” (Matthew 20:26). If in heaven we are all equal, then in vain we humble ourselves here in order to be greater there. Of two debtors of five hundred denarii and fifty, the one to whom more is left loves more. Therefore, the Savior says: her many sins are forgiven, for she loved much, but little is left to him, she loves less (Luke 7:47). Whoever loves less and to whom less is left will, of course, be in a lower degree. The master of the house, leaving, gave his property to his servants, one five talents, another two, the third one, to each according to his ability (Luke ch. 19). Something similar is depicted in another Gospel, that a noble man, going to a distant country in order to get a kingdom for himself and return, called ten slaves and gave them each a liter; of them, one purchased ten liters, the other five, each according to his own strength, and received either ten or five cities as a reward. Next, one who received one talent or one liter buried what he received or hid it in a scarf and saved it until the master returned. First, we must pay attention to the fact that if the righteous do not work in the hope of a reward, as our Zeno wants, but only in order not to lose what they received, then he who buried a liter or a talent so as not to lose what he received has not sinned, and the caution of the saver is more worthy of praise than the vain labor of those who worked without hope of reward. Then - that this same talent, taken away from a fearful or lazy slave, is given not to the one who made a smaller increase, but to the one who made a larger one, i.e. who was placed over ten cities. If the number does not form a rank, then why did he say: “he gave to everyone according to his ability”? If five and ten talents constitute the same increment, then why is the one who made the smaller increment not given ten, and the one who made the larger not five cities? And that the Lord is not content with what we have, but always desires more, He himself shows this by saying: Why did you not give my money to the merchants, and I came with interest and tortured them (Luke 19:23). Knowing this, the Apostle Paul forgets the past and strives for what is ahead, that is, he is constantly improving, and does not carefully store in a handkerchief the grace that he received, but, an envious merchant, is renewed from day to day and considers himself to diminish if he does not constantly increase. The law speaks of six cities of refuge for those who committed murder against their will, and these cities are priestly. One may ask, will you place these runaways between your goats, or between our sheep? If they were goats, they would be killed like other murderers and would not enter the cities of the servants of God. If you call them sheep, then, of course, they will not be the kind of sheep that could graze in complete freedom, without any fear of wolves. Thus, it will be clear to you that although they are sheep, they are lost, on the right hand, they do not stand, but run, until the Great Priest dies and, having descended into hell, frees the souls of those who fled. The children of Israel meet the Gibeonites on the way, and while other nations were destroyed, these turn into woodcutters and water-bearers (Josh. 9), and have such merit before God that the generation of Saul was destroyed for injustice to them. Between whom will you place them? Between goats? but they are not destroyed, and according to the judgment of the Lord they are delivered. Between sheep? But the Divine Scripture says that they do not have merit equal to the Israelites. So you see that although they stand at the right hand, they are in a much lower degree. Between David, the holy man, and Saul, the wicked king, in the middle was Jonathan. We cannot place him among the goats, because he was worthy of the love of the prophet, nor among the best sheep, so as not to equate him with David, especially since he was killed. So he will be among the sheep, but in the lowest rank. And just as between David and Jonathan, so between one sheep and another you will be forced to admit differences. A slave who knows the will of his master and neither prepares nor does according to his will, will receive many beatings; he who is ignorant and has not done what is worthy will be punished with many blows. For to everyone to whom much is given, much will be required of him, and to whom much is entrusted, much will be required of him (Luke 12:47–48). So one and the other slave is given more or less, and the number of blows is determined by the number of entrusted and unfulfilled. The whole land of Judea and the image of the tribes is an image of the future church in heaven. Let's read Joshua, read the last chapters of Ezekiel, and we will see that what in one book is historically depicted on earth, in another is spiritually promised in heaven (Josh. 13; Ezek. 40:48). What do seven and eight steps mean in the description of the church? Which also means that in the Psalter, after the letters of the one hundred and eighteenth psalm, in which we learn the mysterious alphabet, through fifteen steps we reach where we can chant: Behold, now bless the Lord, all the servants of the Lord, who stand in the church of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God (Ps. 133:1). Why do two and a half tribes live beyond the Jordan, where there is a lot of livestock, while the other nine and a half either drive the former inhabitants out of their places or live with them? Why does the tribe of Levi not receive a portion of land, but the Lord has a portion of it, and from among the Levites and priests, one high priest enters into the Holy of Holies, where the cherubim and the atonement are located? Why do other priests wear only linen garments, and do not wear clothes made of gold, hyacinth, scarlet, purple and fine linen? Levites and priests of the lower order receive (in their charge) carts and oxen, while those of the highest order carry the ark of the Lord on their shoulders. If you destroy the order of the tabernacle, church, church, if, as the people say, the same encoma 18 determines the suitability for military service of all those on the right hand, then bishops are nothing, presbyters are in vain, deacons are unnecessary. Why do virgins remain (in their vow)? Why do widows struggle? Why do married people abstain? We will all sin; after repentance we will be the same as the apostles. But we have already begun to see the land from the sea, and after the abysses and raging waves rise in mountains, and after the ship has risen up and fallen down, a pier opens up to us, tired and weakened. We talked about married women, widows, virgins. We preferred virginity to widowhood, we preferred widowhood to marriage. The apostle's περικοπὴ expounds on how one should reason about these questions, and an answer is given to each of the objections. Secular literature also appeared on the stage - it showed what kind of virgins there were, what monogamous ones, and, on the contrary, what kind of troubles were sometimes associated with a marriage union. We moved on to the second section, in which he denies that those who have received baptism with full faith can then sin, and showed that, excluding God, all creation is under sin - not because everyone has sinned, but because they can sin, and the fall of such is a fear for those who stand. Thirdly, we moved on to fasting, and since the enemy’s objection was of two kinds, since he either resorted to philosophers, or to evidence from the Divine Scriptures, we responded to both objections. In the fourth, i.e., in the last section, he divided the sheep and the goats, the right and left side, the righteous and sinners into two categories, wanting to prove that there is no difference between one righteous person and another, one sinner and another. To prove this, he selected inappropriate evidence from the Scriptures as if corresponding to his thoughts. To this objection we answered him with proofs and testimonies from the Scriptures, and we refuted the ancient opinion of Zeno on the basis of both the general sense and the divine reading. Now it remains for us to talk to our Epicurus, who basks in his gardens with boys and girls. You like them thick, shiny, whitened. Add to this, if you like, according to Socratic irony, all the pigs and dogs, and since you love meat, then kites, eagles, hawks and eagle owls. We will not be at all frightened by Aristippus' diversity. Whoever I see is beautiful, dressed up, with tidy hair, with rouged cheeks - everyone is from your herd, everyone grunts along with your pigs. From our herd - sad, pale, poorly dressed and those who, like strangers of this world, if they do not speak in words, then say in their way of life and behavior: woe is me, for my coming continues: I have settled in the village of Kedar (Ps. 119:5), that is, in the darkness of this world, for the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not embraced it. The Son of God taught in Judea, and only twelve apostles followed Him. “The winepress,” he says, “I alone have trodden, and among the nations there is no man with me” (Is. 63:3). During His suffering He was left alone and even Peter’s loyalty to Him wavered, and all the people applauded the Pharisaic teaching, saying: crucify, crucify Him; not the imams of the king, only of Caesar (John 19:6, 15); that is, we follow the trail of vices, not virtues, Epicurus, and not Christ, Jovinian, and not the Apostle Paul. That many sympathize with your opinion is a sign of licentiousness, for they do not so much approve of what you say as they please their own vices. At street corners every day a clown magician hits the behinds of fools and, when they bite, knocks out their teeth with a smooth stick, and yet aren’t there people who can always be attracted by this? Do you consider it great wisdom if many pigs run after you, which you fatten as food for hell? After your sermon and the baths where men and women wash together, all the impatience that at first covered inflamed lust as if with the garments of modesty is naked and exposed, and what was previously hidden has now become obvious. You showed such students, but did not do it. Your teaching has made it so that sins do not even have repentance. Your girls, whom you, with a very clever thought, which no one has ever read or heard, taught from the apostle that it is better to get married than to become inflamed, turned secret fornicators into open husbands. The apostle did not admonish this, the chosen vessel did not teach so. Virgil's opinion is this: “Calls it marriage (coniugium), with this name it covers up guilt.” (Aeneid. I. IV). It is almost four hundred years since the preaching of Christ has been shining in the world. From that time on, countless heresies tore His robe, and almost every error was spread in the Chaldean, Syrian and Greek languages. After so many years, Basilides, the teacher of debauchery and the most vile lusts, was transformed into Jovinian as if into Euphorbus 19, so that he even preached his heresy in Latin. Was there really no province in the whole world that would accept the preaching of debauchery and into which this writhing serpent would penetrate, except for the one that was created by the teaching of Peter on the stone - Christ? The banner of the cross and the severity of the sermon destroyed the churches of idols: now, on the contrary, the voluptuousness of the generative oud, the belly and the throat is trying to crush the power of the cross. Therefore, God says through Isaiah: “My people, those who please you deceive you, and corrupt the paths of your feet” (Isaiah 13:14) and through Jeremiah: “flee from the midst of Babylon and keep your life, and do not believe the false prophets, who say: peace, peace, and there is no peace, who constantly cry, “Church of the Lord” (Jeremiah 51:6). ). “Your prophets saw false and foolish visions about you; they did not reveal your wickedness to call you to repentance; they devour God’s people as food of bread; they have not called on God.” Jeremiah, who announced the captivity, was stoned by the people. Ananias, the son of Azur, was in the present breaking the wooden yoke, and preparing an iron one for the future. False prophets always promise pleasant things, and some people like them. The truth is bitter and those who preach it are filled with bitterness. For the Passover of the Lord is celebrated on unleavened bread of truth and purity and eaten with bitter herbs (Ex. 12). A truly beautiful speech, and let the bride of Christ listen to it among the virgins and widows and celibates (coelibes) - from where this very name comes, because those who abstain from copulation are worthy of heaven (coeli): - “Fast rarely, encroach more often, because you cannot fulfill the affairs of marriage unless you consume wine, meat and delicacies. Voluptuousness requires strength. Don't be afraid of fornication. He who has once been baptized into Christ cannot fall: for to satisfy his passion he has the consolation of marriage. And even if you fall, repentance will restore you, and you, who were hypocrites at baptism, will be firm in the faith in repentance. And do not be embarrassed, thinking that there is any difference between the righteous and the repentant, and that the lower degree, although it gives forgiveness, takes away the crown. For the reward is the same. Whoever stands at the right hand will enter the kingdom of heaven." As a result of such advice, your swineherds are richer than our shepherds, and the goats drag many goats with them. Misogynistic horses were created (Jer. 5:8); immediately when they see the women, they begin to laugh and their lust - oh shame! - they amuse themselves with evidence from the Scriptures. And the women themselves, pitiful and not worthy of pity, chanted the words of their teacher: what, if not the seed, does God want? - they have lost not only chastity, but also decency, and with more insolence they defend lust than they indulge in it. In addition, you have in your army a lot of recruits, a lot of cavalry and reserve soldiers - fat, well-groomed, shiny, privet, who can defend you with their fists and heels. When they meet you, the nobles shun you and the rich kiss your head. Because if you had not appeared, drunkards and gluttons could not enter heaven. Strong in virtue, or better yet in vices, in your camp you also have Amazons, who with open breasts and bare legs and knees challenge the men who oppose them to a contest of lust. And since you are a rich owner, in your poultry houses you raise not turtle doves, but hoopoes, which fly around all the dens of stinking debauchery. Scold me, scold me, inflict any kind of vices on me, accuse me of debauchery and voluptuousness. You will love me the more if I am like this, because I will be from your flock. But I will also turn to you, who blotted out the blasphemy written on your forehead by confessing Christ. A mighty city, a city that rules the world, a city praised by the voice of the apostle (Rom. 1), interpret your name. Rome (Roma) is either the name of strength in Greek, or heights in Hebrew. Keep what you say you are; May virtue make you high, and not vice make you low. Having an example in Neneve, you can, through repentance, avoid the curse with which the Savior threatened you in the Apocalypse (chapters 17 and 18). Beware of the name Jovinian, which comes from the idol (Iove - Jupiter). The Capitol is in desolation, the churches and ceremonies of Jupiter have fallen. Why will you keep his name and his vices? Even under the kings and under Numa Pompilius, your ancestors more readily accepted the abstinence of Pythagoras than under the consuls the licentiousness of Epicurus. Here, as in some other places in his writings, Blessed Jerome, comparing the marital state with a fruit of thirty times, widowhood with a fruit of sixty and virginity with a fruit of a hundred times, strengthens this comparison by paralleling the ways of designating or counting these numbers on the fingers, methods used in ancient times. This is how the Venerable Bede and Cassian describe these methods of reckoning: Cum triginta notare volueris, ungues indicis et pollicis blando conjunges amplexu. Cum dicis sexaginta pollicem curvatum indice circumflexo, diligenter a fronte praecinges. – Centenarius numerus de sinistra transfertur in dexteram, et licet eamdem in supputatione digitorum figuram tenere videatur, nimium tamen quantitatis magnitudine supercrescit. Indication that Joshua died at 110 years old Περίοδοι - a work attributed by Jerome to Clement of Rome. The idea that, having believed in Christ, St. Peter left his wife “along with a fishing boat and a net,” as Jerome also says in a letter to Julian. Obviously, the verb supereffluere, given in both places according to Jerome’s translation, is only a play on words with the idea of ​​​​a leak from the ceiling of a house, which drives the inhabitants out of the house. That is, two-sided, acting equally with both the right and left hands. That is, by strengthening, with excess, predominantly. Jerome probably means eunuchs here. There is no evidence of this about Jacob in the books of Josephus that have come down to us. But in ancient times it was read by both Origen (books 1 and 2 against Celsus, and on Matt. 13) and Eusebius in his history. Felix – Felix – happy. Quid est hoc: omnis socrus oderunt nurus? The expression is indeed ambiguous, allowing for two interpretations: either that all mothers-in-law hate their daughters-in-law, or vice versa - all daughters-in-law hate their mothers-in-law. Castum - fasting in honor of Isis and Cybele, combined with abstinence from bread. Tertullian has testimony about him de lejun. cap 16; Arnobia lib. V. Sallust in Catilin. cap. 1 They say about the strength of this Milo that at the Olympic Games he carried a bull for a whole stage, then killed it with a blow of his fist and devoured it in just one day. See Galen the above work, which is actually entitled: προπρέπτικος λ ό γος πρ ό ς τὰς τέχνας, and Pliny book. VII. Ch. 20. Enkoma (encoma or incoma) is a measure of height that determined the suitability of recruits for military service. Jerome points here to the teaching of Pythagoras on the transmigration of souls, and the opinion that the soul of Euphorbus, killed at Troy, transmigrated into him, Pythagoras. Jovinian, who lived for a long time in the monastery, but then left the monastery, around 390 began to spread the false teaching that virgins who dedicated themselves to serving God have no more merit before God than married women, that the devil has no power over those who have been baptized, that abstinence from certain foods is completely unfounded. These errors, which spread significantly in Rome and then in Milan, were condemned by Pope Spritius and St. Ambrose, but despite these condemnations, they still continued to excite minds, with the persistence of Jovinian, and called Blessed Jerome to write a detailed refutation of them in “Two Books against Jovinian.” The immediate reason for the compilation of this work was the request of Nammachius and Domnion, who, having sent Jerome the comments of Jovinian, expressed the desire that he would respond to their absurdities and curb the “Christian Epicurus”. The work was written in 392. You might be interested in: