St JEROME (c.342-420)

Tr. W. H. Fremantle, The Principal Works of St. Jerome, Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, x (Oxford: Parker &Co; New York: Christian Literature Co., 1896), 346-416.

At the same time, we must take note of the Apostle's good sense. He did not say, 'it is good not to have a wife', but, 'it is good not to touch a woman': as though there were danger even in the touch; as though he who touched her would not escape from her who 'hunts for the precious life,' who causes the young man's judgement to fly away. 'Who can hold fire firmly to his chest and not be burnt or can walk upon burning coals and not be scorched?' Just as he who touches fire is instantly burned, so by mere touch the peculiar nature of man and woman is perceived, and the difference of sex is understood. Heathen fables relate how Mithras and Ericthonius were begotten of the soil, in stone or earth, by raging lust. Hence it was that our Joseph, because the Egyptian woman wished to touch him, fled from her hands, and, as if he had been bitten by a mad dog and feared the spreading poison, threw away the cloak which she had touched. 'Do not refuse each other except by consent for a period of time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.' I ask you, what kind of good thing is that which impedes prayer? Which does not allow the body of Christ to be received? So long as I do the husband's part, I fail in continency. The same Apostle in another place commands us to pray always. If we are to pray always, it follows that we must never be in the bondage of wedlock, for as often as I render my wife her due, I cannot pray.

Then come the words, 'But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they so continue even as I. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to be burnt.' Having conceded to married persons the enjoyment of wedlock and pointed out his own wishes or what he might allow, he passes on to the unmarried and to widows, sets before them his own practice for imitation, and calls them happy, if they so continue. 'But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry', just as he said before, 'to avoid fornication', and 'Lest Satan tempt you, because of your incontinency'. And he gives a reason for saying 'If they do not contain themselves, let them marry', namely, 'It is better to marry than to be burnt.' The reason why it is better to marry is that it is worse to burn. Destroy burning lust and he will not say it is better to marry. The word better always implies a comparison with something worse, not a thing absolutely good and incapable of comparison. It is as though he said, 'it is better to have one eye than neither, it is better to stand on one foot and to support the rest of the body with a stick, than to crawl with broken legs'.

Christ loves virgins more than others, because they willingly give what was not commanded them. And it indicates greater grace to offer what you are not bound to give, than to render what is exacted of you. The Apostles, contemplating the burden of a wife, exclaimed, 'If such is the condition of a man with a wife, it is not advantageous to marry.' Our Lord thought well of their view. 'You rightly think', He said, 'that it may not be advantageous for a man who is striving for the kingdom of heaven to take a wife: but it is a hard matter, and all men do not receive the saying, but only they to whom it has been given. Some are eunuchs by nature, others by the violence of men. Those eunuchs please me who are such not of necessity, but of free choice. Willingly do I take them into my bosom who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, and in order to worship me have renounced the condition of their birth.'

Let us show what this Solomon with his many wives and concubines thought of marriage. For no one can know better than he, who suffered through them, what a wife or woman is. Well, then, he says in the Proverbs: 'The foolish and bold woman comes to want bread.' What bread? Surely, that bread which comes down from heaven: and he immediately adds: 'The earth-born perish in her house, rush into the depths of hell.' Who are the earth-born that perish in her house? They of course who follow the first Adam, who is of the earth, and not the second, who is from heaven. And again in another place: 'Like a worm in wood, so a wicked woman destroys her husband.' But if you assert that this was spoken of bad wives, I shall briefly answer: Why should I be obliged to run the risk of the wife I marry proving good or bad? 'It is better', he says, 'to dwell in a desert land, than with a contentious and irritable woman.' How seldom we find a wife without these faults, he knows who is married. Hence that nobly sublime orator, Varius Geminus, says well 'The man who does not quarrel is a bachelor.'