Book against Vigilance

A small polemical treatise “The Book against Vigilance” was written by Bl. Jerome of Stridon in just one night in 406 against the Alexandrian presbyter Vigilantius, in defense of monasticism and the veneration of martyrs. Vigilantius taught that there is no need to venerate martyrs and their relics, that there is no benefit from prayers to saints, and that some church customs are pagan superstitions. He called monastic poverty and desert living idleness and shameful flight, and did not approve of the custom of sending alms to Jerusalem. Vigilantius also taught that all clergy (including bishops) should marry, calling celibacy a heresy and chastity a breeding ground for debauchery. Blzh. Jerome responds to each of these false teachings (seeing in this a revival of the teachings of Jovinian, condemned by the Church): - the veneration of the holy martyrs and their relics is sanctified by Church Tradition. It is necessary to distinguish between the worship due to God alone and the veneration given to martyrs; - God fulfills the prayers of the saints during their lifetime, all the more so He hears their prayers when they are with Christ; - despite the fact that the custom of lighting candles in churches was borrowed from the pagans, among them it was dedicated to demons, and among Christians it was aimed at honoring the true God and saints; - all-night vigils, which are celebrated in churches dedicated to martyrs, as well as the Sunday Eucharist, do not in any way reduce the solemnity of the Easter Vigil; - alms pleases God. For example, the Apostle Paul collected funds for the benefit of the Jerusalem Church; - chastity, fasting and abstinence have incomparable superiority over licentiousness and luxury. Virginity and monasticism are pleasing to the Lord and are the lot of the elect. *The title of the work in Latin is Contra Vigilantium. Vigilantius, a priest from Aquitaine, who, according to Jerome, had little education, taught that: 1) One should not venerate martyrs and their relics and hold vigils in churches on their remains. 2) That the prayers of the saints do not benefit us. 3) That some church customs, especially the lighting of candles at the liturgy or when reading the Gospel, are pagan superstitions, and that hallelujah should never be sung, except for Easter. 4) That everyone can enjoy wealth and that renunciation of the things of the world is not a virtue, therefore he called monastic poverty and desert living idleness and shameful flight, and did not approve, and sometimes forbade the custom of sending alms to Jerusalem. 5) He taught that all clergy, not excluding bishops, should marry and called celibacy a heresy and chastity a breeding ground for debauchery. Each of these false teachings is answered by Jerome in this book, which he says he dictated in one night. The book was written in 406. Many monsters were born in the world. We read about centaurs and sirens, owls and owls. (Isa. ch. 13 and 35). Job in a mysterious speech depicts leviathan and hippopotamus (Job ch. 3 and 40). The fables of the poets tell about Cerberus and the Stymphalidae, about the Erymanthian boar and the Nemean lion, the chimera and the many-headed hydra. Virgil describes Cacus (En. book 8). The three-headed Geryon of Spain is known. Gaul alone did not have monsters, but was always rich in strong and intelligent men. Suddenly Vigilantius, or rather Dormitantius 1 appeared, who with an unclean spirit is at enmity against the spirit of Christ, denies the veneration of the tombs of martyrs, says that vigils should be condemned, that, with the exception of Easter, hallelujah should never be sung, that abstinence is a heresy, that chastity is a breeding ground for debauchery. And just as Euphorbus, as they say, was reborn in Pythagoras, so the false teaching of Jovinian was resurrected in him, so that we are forced to respond to the suggestions of the devil in both the first and the second. He is rightly told: “evil seed, prepare your children to be killed by the sins of your father” (Is. 14:20–21). Condemned by the authority of the Roman Church, he did not so much give up his breath over Colchisian birds and pork meats as vomit his breath. This Calaguritan innkeeper, the opposite name of the place, is the mute Quintilian, mixes water with wine and, in accordance with his previous artistry, tries to mix the poison of his unbelief with the Catholic faith, to humiliate virginity, to arouse hatred of chastity, to preach against the fasts of saints at the feasts of worldly people; and philosophizing over cups and feasting on pies, he delights in the melody of the psalms, so that only at feasts does he deign to listen to the songs of David and Asaph and the sons of the Horites. Not being able to restrain myself from being tormented in spirit by this more with sorrow than with laughter, I cannot remain deaf to this insult to the apostles and martyrs. Oh shame! They say that he has bishops who share his crime, if only one can call those bishops who ordain deacons only if they first marry, not trusting the chastity of any unmarried, even proving how holy those who are suspected of evil by everyone live - and do not distribute the sacraments of Christ otherwise than if they see the pregnant wives of clergy and children crying in the arms of their mothers. What will the churches of the East do, that the churches of Egypt and the Apostolic See, who accept clergy or virgins, or abstainers, or those who, if they have wives, then cease to be husbands 2? This is what Dormitantius taught, loosening the reins of lust and with his exhortations the natural ardor of the flesh, which flares up mainly in youth, aggravating or better satisfying by intercourse with women, so that there would be nothing in which we differ from pigs, in which we differ from dumb animals, in any way from horses, about which it is written: “horses of misogyny are made, every one of them neighs at the wife of his sincere” ( Jer.5:8). This is the same thing that the Holy Spirit says through David: “Do not be like a horse and a beast that has no understanding” (Ps. 31:9). And again about Dormitantius and his accomplices: “with reins and bridles, bind their jaws, those who do not approach you” (ibid.). But it’s time, presenting his own words, to try to answer each of his provisions. For it may happen that again a malicious interpreter will say that I invented the matter in order to answer it with rhetorical declamation, like the one about which I wrote to Gaul, regarding which mother and daughter disagreed among themselves. The culprits of this reasoning of mine are the holy presbyters Riparius and Desiderius, who write that their parishes neighboring his parish are infected with his teaching, and sent through brother Sisinius books that he vomited in his sleep after getting drunk. And they assure that there are some who, while indulging their vices, sympathize with his blasphemies. Although he is ignorant and uneducated, both in expressions and in information and in language, and cannot even defend the true; but for worldly people and women burdened with sins, always learning and never achieving the knowledge of the truth, I will answer his nonsense with one reasoning, so as not to seem to neglect the message of the holy men who asked me to do this. He truly corresponds to his family - so that he came from the seed of robbers and vagabonds, whom (Cons. Strab. book 5) Pompey, after pacifying Spain, hastening to return in triumph, drove from the Pyrenees mountains and gathered them into one city, which is why the city was received by them Conven 3 - he is still robbing against the Church of God and, descending from Vectonian, Arrebac and Celtiberian mountains, attacks the Gallic churches, and bears not the banner of the cross, but the sign of the devil. The same Pompey did this in the countries of the East, so that, having defeated the Cilician and Isaurian pirates and robbers between Cilicia and Isauria, he could build a city in his name. But this city still preserves the institutions of its ancestors and no Dormitantius has appeared in it. The Gauls tolerate their natural enemy and allow to sit in the church a man who is touched in the head and in need of the bonds of Hippocrates, a man who, among other blasphemous words, says: “Why is it necessary for you not only to honor with such reverence, but also to worship that, I don’t know what, that you honor in a small vessel that you carry with you?” And again in the same book: “why do you kiss the ashes wrapped in a towel with worship”? And further: “we see that in relation to the pagan rite, under the pretext of piety, it was introduced in churches, even in sunlight, to light many candles; Everywhere they also worship with a kiss a powder, I don’t know what, in a small precious vessel wrapped in a towel. Such people show great honor to the most blessed martyrs, whom they think need to be illuminated, while they are illuminated by the Lamb sitting on the throne with all the splendor of his greatness.” For who, O crazy head, ever worshiped the martyrs (as God, martires adoravit), who considered man to be God? When Paul and Barnabas were recognized as Jupiter and Mercury by the Lycaonians (Acts 14), and when they wanted to make a sacrifice to them, did they not tear their clothes and say that they were men? Not because they were not better than the long-dead people of Jupiter and Mercury, but so that, due to pagan error, the honor that belongs to God would not be given to them. We also read this about Peter, who, when Cornelius wanted to bow to him, raised his hand and said: “Arise, and I myself am a man” (Acts 10:25). In addition, you dare to say: “it is unknown what you honor in the small vessel you carry with you.” I want to know what this “I don’t know what” is? Say it more clearly in order to blaspheme with complete freedom: “a powder, unknown what, in a small precious vessel, wrapped in a towel.” He regrets that the remains of the martyrs are covered with a precious shroud, and are not wrapped in rags or rags, or thrown into a dung heap, so that worship can be given to one drunken and sleepy Vigilantius. So, are we blasphemers if we enter the basilicas of the apostles? Emperor Constantine I was a blasphemer, who transferred the holy relics of Andrew, Luke and Timothy to Constantinople, at which demons roar and those living in Vigilance confess that they feel their presence? Shouldn’t the current Augustus Arcadius also be considered a blasphemer, who, after a long time, transferred the relics of blessed Samuel from Judea to Thrace? Shouldn't we consider all the bishops who carried the most insignificant thing and decomposed ashes in silk and a golden vessel not only blasphemers, but also fools? Are not the people of all churches stupid, who met the holy relics and accepted them with such joy, as if they had seen a truly present and living prophet - when crowds of people arrived from Palestine to Chalcedon and sang praises to Christ with one voice? After all, they worshiped Samuel, and not Christ, whose prophet and Levite was Samuel. You consider him dead, and therefore you blaspheme. Read the Gospel: “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). So, if they are alive, then they are not imprisoned in what you consider an honorable prison. For you say that the souls of the apostles and martyrs are seated either in the bosom of Abraham, or in a place of refreshment, or under the altar of God, and cannot reveal their presence at their tombs and wherever they want: they are said to be of senatorial dignity and therefore are not confined in the foulest prison between murderers, but in a free and honorable imprisonment on the happy islands and in the Elysian fields. Will you lay down laws to God? Will you place bonds on the apostles, so that until the day of judgment those about whom it is written: “They will follow the Lamb if he goes” (Rev. 14:4) will be kept in prison and will not be with their Lord? If the Lamb is everywhere, then one must think that they, who are with the Lamb, are also everywhere. And while the devil and demons wander throughout the whole world and appear everywhere with extreme speed, can the martyrs, after the shedding of their blood, be imprisoned under the lid of the coffin and cannot come out? You say in your book that while we are alive, we can pray for each other, and after death, no one’s prayer for another can be heard, especially since the martyrs, who prayed for vengeance for their blood, could not ask for this (Rev. 6:9). If the apostles and martyrs, while still united to the body, when they still have to take care of themselves, can pray for others: then how much more so after the crowns of victories and triumphs? One man Moses asks God for forgiveness for six hundred thousand who are able to bear arms (Exodus 32; Acts 7); and Stephen, an imitator of his Lord and the first martyr in Christ, prays for the forgiveness of his persecutors; will they really have less power after they begin to be with Christ? The Apostle Paul says that he was given two hundred and seventy-six souls who were with him on the ship: will he, after being resolved with Christ, close his lips and not be able to utter a word for those who throughout the world believed his Gospel? And would the living dog Vigilantius really be better than this dead lion (Eccl. 9:4)? I could rightly quote this from Ecclesiastes if I recognized Paul as dead in spirit. Finally, the saints are not called dead, but reposed. Therefore, Lazarus, who was about to be resurrected, is called asleep (John 11). And the apostle forbids the Thessalonians to grieve for the dead. You sleep awake and write sleepily, and show me an apocryphal book, which, under the name of Ezra, is read by you and others like you, in which it is written that after death no one dares to pray for others. I have never read this book, because what is the need to pick up something that the church does not accept? Perhaps you can point me to Balsam, and Barbel, and the “Treasure” of Manes, and the funny name of Levsibor. Since you live at the foot of the Pyrenees and, related to Iberia, you follow the incredible inventions of Basilides, the most ancient heretic and his ignorant teaching, and represent what is condemned by the authority of the whole world. For in your commentary, as if speaking in your favor, you take from Solomon a testimony that Solomon did not write at all, so that, having another Ezra, you also have another Solomon: if you like, then read the fictitious revelations of all the patriarchs and prophets 4, and having studied them, tell them at the women's benches, or offer them for reading in your taverns, so that with this nonsense it is more convenient to attract the ignorant to drunkenness mob. And we light candles not in clear light, as you falsely slander, but in order to moderate the darkness of the night with this means and to stay awake until the light, so as not to sleep with you blind in the darkness. If some, out of ignorance (imperitiam) and simplicity of worldly people or especially pious women, about whom it is truly said: “I bear witness that they have the zeal of God, but not according to understanding” (Rom. 10:2) - do this out of reverence for martyrs, what do you lose through this? Once upon a time, the apostles also discussed that ointment was being wasted, but they were convicted by the Lord (Matthew 26; Mark 14). For neither Christ needed the world, nor the martyrs need the light of candles: however, that woman did it in honor of Christ and the good feeling of her intention is acceptable. And those who light candles have a reward according to their faith, according to the word of the Apostle: “Let each one abound in his own feelings” (Rom. 14:5). Do you call such people idolaters? I do not deny that all of us who believe in Christ came from the error of idolatry. For we are not born Christians, but are reborn. And since we once worshiped idols, should we not now honor God, lest it seem that we honor Him with the same veneration as idols? This was done to idols, and therefore must be removed; this is done to martyrs, and therefore should be accepted. For even without the relics of the martyrs, in all the churches of the East, when the Gospel should be read, lamps are lit, even in sunlight, of course not to drive away darkness, but as a sign of joy. Therefore, these gospel virgins always have their lamps lit (Matthew 25). And the apostles are told: “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning” (Luke 12:35). And about John the Baptist: “he is a lamp of light and grief” (John 5:35), so that under the image of material light the light about which in the Psalter we read: “a lamp for my feet is your law and a light for my paths” (Ps. 119:105). So, is the bishop of Rome doing something bad, who, in our opinion, on the venerable bones, but in your opinion, on the insignificant ashes of the dead people Peter and Paul, offers sacrifices to the Lord, and considers their tombs to be altars of Christ? And not only of one city, but of the whole world, the bishops are mistaken, who, despising the innkeeper Vigilantius, enter the basilicas of the dead, where the most insignificant dust and ashes lie wrapped in a towel, you don’t know what kind, so bad, it defiles everything, and like the tombs of the Pharisees, the outside is whitened, while inside, in your opinion, everything is unclean, stinks and stinks? And then, spewing out vile dirt from the pit of his heart, he dares to say: “Consequently, the souls of the martyrs love their mortal remains and fly around them, and are always present with them, so that if some sinner comes, being absent, they will not lose the opportunity to hear him”? O monster worthy of being thrown to the ends of the earth! Do you laugh at the relics of the martyrs and, together with the founder of this heresy, Eunomius, slander the churches of Christ, and are you not afraid of such a community as to say against us the same thing that he says against the church? For all his followers do not enter the basilicas of the apostles and martyrs, in order, that is, to venerate the dead Eunomius, whose books they recognize as more authoritative than the Gospels and in him they believe to see the light of truth, just as other heresies prove that the paraclete appeared in Montana, and say that Manes was the paraclete himself. Against your heresy, which has long rebelled against the church (so that in this too you do not boast as the inventor of a new atrocity), Tertullian, a most learned man, writes a wonderful book, to which he gives the very correct name Scorpiacum, because through a great wound this heresy pours out its poison into the body of the church, which in ancient times was called the Cainite heresy, and long dead and even buried, has now been resurrected Dormitanium. I am surprised that you do not say that one should not seek martyrdom at all, for God, who does not require the blood of goats and calves, especially does not require the blood of people. Whether you said it, or even if you didn't say it, you can be considered to have said it. For, proving that the relics of martyrs should be despised, you forbid the shedding of blood, which is unworthy of any veneration. I spoke briefly about the vigils and all-night vigils often celebrated in the basilicas of martyrs in another letter written two years ago to St. Riparius the Presbyter. And if you think that they should not be allowed to do so, so as not to appear to be celebrating Easter often, then therefore, on the Resurrection Day, sacrifices should not be made to Christ, so as not to celebrate the Passover of the Lord’s Resurrection often and not to have not one, but many Passovers. And the abuse of young men and low women, often noticed at night, should not be imputed to pious people, because at Easter vigils something similar is often noticed and, however, the guilt of a few does not serve to humiliate a pious cause, a few who, even without vigils, can sin in their own or in other people’s homes. The faith of the apostles was not destroyed by the betrayal of Judas. Therefore, our vigils will not be destroyed by the evil vigils of others; even more so, those who sleep for lust are forced to keep vigils for chastity. For what is good if done once cannot be bad if done more often, or if any crime should be avoided, then it is not criminal because it is done often, but because it is done at least once. So, let us not hold vigils during the days of Easter, so that the long-unsatisfied lusts of fornicators are not fulfilled, so that the wife does not find an opportunity to sin, so that she cannot be unlocked by her husband’s key. I cannot trace everything that the message of the holy elders contains; I’ll just present something from his books. He cites evidence against the signs and wonders performed in the basilicas of the martyrs and says that they are useful for unbelievers, and not for those who believe - as if now the question is for whom they are performed, and not about the power by which they are performed. Let signs be performed for the unbelievers, so that those who want to believe the word and teaching will be led to faith by signs, and the Lord will perform signs for the unbelievers; but because they were unbelievers, the signs should not be humiliated; on the contrary, they should be worthy of great surprise, since they were so strong that they amazed and aroused minds to faith. So, I do not want you to tell me that signs serve for unbelievers, but answer me about how in the most insignificant dust and ashes, who knows what, such a presence of signs and powers appears. I know, I know, most unfortunate of mortals, what you are worried about, what you are afraid of. That unclean spirit that prompts you to write this has often been tormented by this most insignificant dust, and is even now experiencing torment, and the one that apparently suffers defeat in you is confessed in others. Perhaps, however, you, according to the custom of the pagans and wicked people, Porphyria and Eunomius, are inventing that these are the spells of demons and that the demons do not really scream, but only feignedly show their torment. I give advice - go to the basilicas of the martyrs and someday you will be cleansed; there you will find many of your accomplices, and you will be burned not by the candles of the martyrs, which you do not like, but by an invisible flame, and then you will admit what you now deny, and you, the speaker in the Vigilance, will openly proclaim your name, that you are either Mercury in greed and money, or, according to Plautus’s Akphitryon, Nocturnus during sleep, which Jupiter spent two nights in adultery with Alcmene, so that Hercules, or probably Father Bacchus, would be born of great strength through drunkenness and a cup hanging from his shoulders, with an always red face, foam on his lips and unbridled curses. Therefore, when in this province a sudden earthquake in the middle of the night awakened everyone from sleep, you, the most prudent and wisest of mortals, prayed naked and presented to us Adam and Eve from paradise; only they, when their eyes opened, were ashamed, seeing themselves naked and their cold limbs covered with tree leaves, and you, naked with both clothing and faith, struck by sudden horror, and having something of the intoxication of the night, exposed the cold part of your body to the eyes of the saints and showed your mind. The church has such opponents; Such and such warriors fight against the blood of martyrs, such and such orators thunder against the apostles, or better yet, such and such mad dogs bark against the disciples of Christ. I confess my fear, lest it somehow arise from superstition. When I am angry or think something evil in my mind and a night vision seduces me, then I do not dare to enter the basilicas: so I tremble all over, both body and spirit. You may laugh and make fun of this as the ravings of women. I am not ashamed for a faith similar to the faith of those who were the first to see the risen Lord, who are sent to the apostles, who are entrusted to the holy apostles in the mother of the Lord Savior. You spew up vomit together with the people of the world, and I will fast with women, or better yet with pious men who prefer chastity to their faces and, having lips pale from abstinence, show Christ’s chastity. It seems to me that you are also grieving about how, if the Gauls increase abstinence, sobriety and fasting, your taverns will not lose income, and how you will not lose the opportunity to spend the whole night holding vigils to the devil and drunken revels. Moreover, by the same letter it was conveyed to me that contrary to the teaching of the Apostle Paul, even Peter, John and James, who gave Paul the right hands of fellowship and commanded them to remember the poor, you forbid sending to Jerusalem in favor of the saints certain benefits for their needs. Of course, if I answer this, you will immediately bark that I am defending my own cause, since you rewarded everyone with such generosity that if you had not arrived in Jerusalem and distributed your money or your patrons, we would all have died of hunger. I say what the Apostle Paul says in almost all of his epistles and instills in the pagan churches that on the Sabbath alone, that is, on Sunday, everyone should bring (donations), which would be forwarded to Jerusalem for the needs of the saints either through his disciples or through those whom they themselves appoint and, if it is convenient, either send or deliver what is collected. And in the Acts of the Apostles he says to Felix the governor: “After many had flown, I came (to Jerusalem) to give alms and offerings in my tongue, and in them I was found cleansed in the church” (Acts 24:17-18). Is it possible that in another part of the earth and in the churches that were just being born, he taught with his faith, he could not share what he received from others? But he wanted to give holy places to the poor, to the poor who, having left their possessions for the sake of Christ, turned all their thoughts to serving Christ. It would be a long time if I now wanted to reveal from all his epistles all the evidence in which he speaks and with all his mind encourages that benefits be sent to believers in Jerusalem and to holy places, not for greed, but for assistance, not for collecting wealth, but to maintain the weakness of the body and to avoid cold and hunger. In Judea, even to this day, the custom is preserved, not only among us, but also among the Jews, that those who study the law of the Lord day and night and have no father on earth except God, enjoy the offerings of the synagogues and the whole world; that is, according to uniformity, not so that there is relief for some and burden for others, but so that the excess of some makes up for the deficiency of others (1 Cor. 8:13). You will answer that everyone can do this in their own country, and that there will be no shortage of poor people who could be supported by church benefits. And we do not deny that benefits should be given to all the poor, even to Jews and Samaritans, if there is such generosity. But the apostle teaches that although everyone should give alms, then especially those close to the faith (Gal. 6), about whom the Savior in the Gospel said: “make for yourselves friends from mammon of unrighteousness, so that they may receive you into eternal shelter” (Luke 16:9). Can those poor people, under the rags and dirt of whose bodies unbridled lust reign, have eternal abodes, those poor people who have neither present nor future abodes? For it is not just the poor who are called blessed, but the poor in spirit, about whom it is written: “Blessed is he who considers the poor and the wretched; on the day of cruelty the Lord will deliver him” (Ps. 40:1). To help the poor of the crowd, it is not intelligence that is needed, but alms. In the holy beggars there is the bliss of reason: you need to give to someone who is ashamed to accept, and when he takes, he grieves, reaps the physical, but sows the spiritual. And that he proves that those who use their property and little by little distribute the fruits of their acquisitions to the poor do better than those who, having sold their property, sacrifice everything at once, then the answer to this will not be from me, but from the Lord: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell everything that you have and give to the poor, and come after Me” (Matthew 19:21). He speaks to the one who wants to be perfect and who leaves his father, ship and nets with the apostles. The level that you praise is the second or third; We also accept it, knowing however that the first should be preferred to the second and third. And you should not intimidate the monks in their feat with your malicious tongue and ferocious attacks - the monks about whom you rant and say: if everyone shuts themselves up and is in the desert, then who will serve in the churches, who will win the people of the world for God, who will convert sinners to virtue? For, according to this reasoning, if everyone along with you is stupid, then who will be smart? And virginity will not be approved. For if everyone is a virgin, then there will be no marriage, the human race will perish, children will not cry in their cradles, midwives will beg without earnings, and Dormitantius, alone and crouched, will remain awake on his bed in a severe chill: a virtue is rare and not sought after by many. And, oh, if everyone were like the few, about whom it is said: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 20:16, 22:14), then let there be prisons. And the duty of a monk is not to teach, but to cry; he mourns either himself or the world and awaits with fear the coming of the Lord, knowing his weakness and the mortal vessel that he carries, he is afraid to stumble, lest he be struck and crushed, and lest he break. That is why he avoids the gaze of women, especially young ones, and is so concerned about cleanliness that he is afraid of what is safe. Why, you say, are you going into the desert? Yes, so as not to hear, not to see you, so as not to be excited by your fury, so as not to endure your attacks, so that the eye of a harlot does not captivate me, so that my beautiful appearance does not attract me to criminal embraces. You will answer: this does not mean war, but flight. Stand in line, resist your enemies fully armed, so that after victory you will receive a crown. I confess my weakness. I don’t want to fight in the hope of victory, lest I ever lose my victory. If I run away, I will avoid the sword; If I stand, then I need to either win or fall. What is the need to leave what is right and pursue what is wrong? One must avoid death either with a shield or with one's feet. You, the warrior, can be defeated and win. When I run away, I do not win by running away; but I then run away so as not to be defeated. It is not at all safe to sleep near a snake. It may happen that she will not bite me, but it may happen that someday she will bite me. We call you mothers, sisters and daughters, and we are not ashamed to darken the holy names with our vices. What does a monk do in women's cells? What do solitary and frequent conversations and eyes that avoid intermediaries mean? Holy love has no intolerance. What we said about lust, we can apply to greed and to all the vices that are alienated by the desert. That is why we shy away from urban crowds, so as not to have incentives to do what prompts us to do not so much nature as free will. This is what, as I said, at the request of the holy presbyters, I dictated in one night reception, since Brother Sisinius was in a hurry and was in a hurry to go to Egypt to help the saints: otherwise the subject of the argument, which caused more indignation than the abundance of evidence, would have been clearly humiliated. And if Dormitantius again stays awake cursing me and, with the same blasphemous lips with which he blasphemed the apostles and martyrs, decides to scold me too, then for him I will stay awake not just for a short reasoning, but for the whole night for him and his accomplices, or better yet, students and teachers, who, if they do not see the swollen bellies of their wives, consider their husbands unworthy of serving Christ. Vigilantius - awake. Jerome ironically renames him and calls him Dormitantius - sleeping, sleepy. Reading this and similar testimonies of Blessed Jerome, one should not forget that he was the most zealous defender of virginity and an enemy of married life - sometimes to the extreme. Perhaps insufficient acquaintance with the Eastern Church was the reason for this testimony of Jerome, which disagrees with history. Convenae are aliens from different places. Perhaps Jerome here means a book called πατριάρχαι, indicated in the synopsis of Athanasius and in the rule of the Patriarch of Constantinople Nicephorus. You might be interested in: