However, not merely to find fault, come let us devise a mode of correction too. What then will the mode be? I would commit you to your own wives, that they may instruct you. It is true, according to Paul's law, [334] you ought to be the teachers. But since that order is reversed by sin, and the body has come to be above, and the head beneath, let us even take this way.
But if thou art ashamed to have a woman for thy teacher, fly from sin, and thou wilt quickly be able to mount up on the throne which God hath given thee. Since so long as thou sinnest the Scripture sends thee not to a woman only, but even to things irrational, and those of the viler sort; yea, it is not ashamed to send thee who art honored with reason, as a disciple to the ant. [335] Plainly this is no charge against the Scripture, but against them that so betray their own nobility of race. This then we will do likewise; and for the present we will commit thee to thy wife; but if thou despise her, we will send thee away to the school of the very brutes, and will point out to thee how many birds, fishes, four-footed beasts, and creeping things are found more honorable, and chaster than thou.
If now thou art ashamed, and dost blush at the comparison, mount up to thine own nobility, and fly the sea of hell, and the flood of fire, I mean the pool in the theatre. For this pool introduces to that sea, and kindles that abyss of flame. Since if "he that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery," [336] he who is forced even to see her naked, how doth he not become ten thousandfold a captive? The flood in the days of Noah did not so utterly destroy the race of men as these swimming women drown all that are there with great disgrace. For as to that rain, though it wrought indeed a death of the body, yet did it repress the wickedness of the soul; but this hath the contrary effect; while the bodies remain, it destroys the soul. And ye, when there is a question of precedence, claim to take place of the whole word, forasmuch as our city first crowned itself with the name of Christian; [337] but in the competition of chastity, ye are not ashamed to be behind the rudest cities.
8. "Well," saith one, "and what dost thou require us to do? to occupy the mountains, and become monks?" Why it is this which makes me sigh, that ye think them alone to be properly concerned with decency and chastity; and yet assuredly Christ made His laws common to all. Thus, when He saith, "if any one look on a woman to lust after her," He speaks not to the solitary, but to him also that hath a wife; since in fact that mount was at that time filled with all kinds of persons of that description. Form then in thy mind an image of that amphitheatre, and hate thou this, which is the devil's. Neither do thou condemn the severity of my speech. For I neither "forbid to marry," [338] nor hinder thy taking pleasure; but I would have this be done in chastity, not with shame, and reproach, and imputations without end. I do not make it a law that you are to occupy the mountains and the deserts, but to be good and considerate and chaste, dwelling in the midst of the city. For in fact all our laws are common to the monks also, except marriage; yea rather, even with respect to this, Paul commands us to put ourselves altogether on a level with them; saying, "For the fashion of this world passeth away:" that "they that have wives be as though they had none." [339]
"Wherefore" (so he speaks) "I do not bid you take possession of the summits of the mountains; it is true I could wish it, since the cities imitate the things that were done in Sodom; nevertheless, I do not enforce this. Abide, having house and children and wife; only do not insult thy wife, nor put thy children to shame, neither bring into thine house the infection from the theatre." Hearest thou not Paul saying, "The husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife," [340] and setting down laws common to both? But thou, if thy wife be continually thrusting herself into a public assembly, art severe in blaming her; but thyself, spending whole days on public shows, thou dost not account worthy of blame. Yea, touching thy wife's modesty thou art so strict as even to go beyond necessity or measure, and not to allow her so much as indispensable absences; but to thyself thou deemest all things lawful. Yet Paul allows thee not, who gives the wife likewise the same authority, for thus he speaks: "Let the husband render unto the wife due honor." [341] What sort of honor then is this, when thou insultest her in the chiefest things, and givest up her body to harlots (for thy body is hers); when thou bringest tumults and wars into thine house, when thou doest in the market place such things, as being related by thyself to thy wife at home, overwhelm her with shame, and put to shame also thy daughter if present, and more than them, surely, thyself? For thou must necessarily either be silent, or behave thyself so unseemly, that it would be just for thy very servants to be scourged for it. What plea then wilt thou have, I pray thee, beholding, as thou dost, with great eagerness, things which even to name is disgraceful; preferring to all sights these, which even to recount is intolerable?
Now then for a season, in order not to be too burdensome, I will here bring my discourse to an end. But if ye continue in the same courses, I will make the knife sharper, and the cut deeper; and I will not cease, till I have scattered the theatre of the devil, and so purified the assembly of the Church. For in this way we shall both be delivered from the present disgrace, and shall reap the fruit of the life to come, by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might for ever and ever. Amen.
[300] okonometai .
[301] i.e, Their assuming that the Christ should be born at that time.
[302] ex okonoma.
[303] aneptrothe.
[304] Micah v. 2.
[305] St. Jerome, de Nom. Hebr. t. 3, 77, ed. Venet. 1767. "Zorobabel, princeps vel magister Babylonis', sive aliena translatio,' vel ortus in Babylone.'"
[306] i.e. He made Bethlehem so far greater than Jerusalem: because "not the least" seems here equivalent to "the greatest."
[307] Matt. i. 21.
[308] [The R.V. renders more accurately: "Which shall be shepherd of my people Israel."--R.]
[309] Matt. xxi. 16; Ps. viii. 2.
[310] Ps. cx. 1; Acts ii. 34.
[311] Isa. xi. 10; Rom. xv. 12. [The latter passage also follows the LXX. The word "trust" should be changed to "hope," as in R.V., Rom. xv. 12.--R.]
[312] Rom. ix. 6.
[313] [R.V. "learned of them carefully" (ekrbosen par atn). "Diligently" is from the Vulgate.--R.]
[314] Matt. ii. 7.
[315] anoa. [Rendered "folly," "extreme folly," etc., below.--R.]
[316] [epunthneto par atn, a paraphrase of the New Testament passage, a trace of which appears in the A.V.--R.]
[317] ek poll t periousa tithe t thrama. Comp. Viger. de Idiotism. Græc. ix. 3, 3. ["Marking his prey out of great superfluity," is the more literal rendering. The sense seems to be, "including more than was necessary that he might certainly include his prey."--R.]
[318] ["Search out carefully," R.V. The Greek text of the New Testament is accurately cited.--R.]
[319] Matt. ii. 8.
[320] Matt. ii. 9.
[321] Some mss. read "the Jews."
[322] [dmo. The translation is somewhat obscure, throughout the entire sentence.--R.]
[323] Because Marcion denied Christ's human nature, Paul His Divinity. See Epiph. Hær. 22 and 65.
[324] [That is "preceded;" comp. 1 Thess. iv. 15 (R.V.) where the same Greek word occurs, which is rendered "prevent" in the A.V.--R.]
[325] Acts xiii. 46.
[326] Acts xiii. 46.
[327] Bethlehem signifies, in Hebrew, "the house of bread."
[328] 1 Cor. xi. 27.
[329] Or, "Spiritual Table." Savile.
[330] See Hom. vi. 10.
[331] [eagagen pengellto, "were promising to introduce."--R.]
[332] This expression, T gia to goi, "Holy Things for Holy Persons," is used in the liturgies of St. Clement, St. James, St. Mark, St. Chrysostom, the Ethiopian liturgy, and that of Severus.
[333] hedon eripon.
[334] 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35.
[335] Prov. vi. 6.
[336] Matt. v. 28.
[337] Acts xi. 26. [More literally. "the name of the Christians," indicating more directly the reference to the passage in Acts.--R.]
[338] 1 Tim. iv. 2.
[339] 1 Cor. vii. 31, 29.
[340] 1 Cor. vii. 4.
[341] 1 Cor. vii. 3. In our copies of the Greek Testament, and in the mss. of St. Chrysostom, here it is, enoian, not timn. But Mr. Field writes timn, 1. from internal evidence; 2, from comparison of St. Chrysostom's own Commentary on this place of St. Paul; and accounts for it by supposing that he quoted from memory, as often, and confused the verse with 1 Peter iii. 7. [The text in 1 Cor. vii. 3, according to most of the best Greek and Latin mss., is tn pheiln (R.V., "her duo"). The text and argument of Chrysostom indicate careless citation. The translator's note was written before New Testament textual criticism had received any attention from more modern English divines.--R.]