11. Once more the fire of unchastity seized you, this time among savage swords and in the quarters of a married barbarian of great influence and power. You were not afraid to commit adultery in a house where the injured husband might have punished you without calling in a judge's aid. You found yourself attracted and drawn to suburban parks and gardens; and, in the husband's absence behaved as boldly and madly as if you supposed your companion to be not your paramour but your wife. She was at last captured, but you escaped through an underground passage and secretly made your way to Rome. There you hid yourself among some Samnite robbers; and on the first hint that the aggrieved husband was coming down from the Alps like a new Hannibal in search of you, you did not think yourself safe till you had taken refuge on shipboard. So hasty indeed was your flight that you chose to face a tempest at sea rather than take the consequences of remaining on shore. Somehow or other you reached Syria, and on arriving there professed a wish to go on to Jerusalem and there to serve the Lord. Who could refuse to welcome one who declared himself to be a monk; especially if he were ignorant of your tragical career and had read the letters of commendation which your bishop had addressed to other prelates? [4009] Unhappy man! you transformed yourself into an angel of light; [4010] and while you were in reality a minister of Satan, you pretended to be a minister of righteousness. You were only a wolf in sheep's clothing; [4011] and having played the adulterer once towards the wife of a man, you desired now to play the adulterer to the spouse of Christ. [4012]
12. My design in recounting these events has been to sketch for you the picture of your evil life and to set your misdeeds plainly before your eyes. I have wished to prevent you from making God's mercy and His abundant tenderness an excuse for committing new sins and to save you from crucifying to yourself the son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame. For you may do these things if you do not read the words which follow the passage to which I have alluded. They are these: "The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessings from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned." [4013]
[3949] 1 Sam. xv. 11, 17.
[3950] 1 Cor. v. 1.
[3951] 2 Cor. xii. 21.
[3952] Luke xvi. 13, 16.
[3953] Phil. iii. 19.
[3954] Rom. ii. 4, 5.
[3955] Ex. v. 2.
[3956] Ezek. xii. 27, 28.
[3957] Ps. lxxiii. 11, 12.
[3958] Ps. lxxiii. 13.
[3959] So the Vulgate, from which Jerome quotes.
[3960] Ps. lxxiii. 3-9.
[3961] Cf. Matt. x. 23.
[3962] Matt. x. 24, 25.
[3963] Luke xxiii. 31.
[3964] So the Latin.
[3965] Mal. iii. 14, 15, 18.
[3966] A writer and actor of mimes, probably in the first century of the Empire.
[3967] Am. i. 3, LXX.
[3968] Ezek. xxxiii. 11.
[3969] Luke v. 31.
[3970] Cf. Ezek. xvi. 6.
[3971] Ex. xx. 5.
[3972] Ezek. iii. 1; ii. 9, 10, Vulg.
[3973] Is. xxviii. 15.
[3974] Isa. xxii. 12-14.
[3975] 1 Sam. xv. 11.
[3976] Acts vi. 5.
[3977] Rev. ii. 6, 15.
[3978] Women guilty of adultery were legally punishable with death until the time of Justinian.
[3979] Ps. lxxxv. 11, 12.
[3980] Mimus, scurra, atellanus.
[3981] 1 Cor. xi. 5, 6.
[3982] At the Eucharistic service the gospel was commonly though not exclusively read by a deacon. (See Const. Apost. II. 57, 5, and Sozomen, H. C. VII. 19.)
[3983] Gal. iv. 16.
[3984] The goddess who in the Roman pantheon presided over funerals. The gladiators meant are the so-called bustuarii who were engaged to fight at the funeral pile (bustum) in honour of the dead.
[3985] i.e. by the use of depilatories.
[3986] Jer. iii. 3.
[3987] Mal. iii. 7.
[3988] Rev. iii. 17.
[3989] Cf. Cyprian, Epist. ad Demet. xxv.
[3990] Luke x. 30-34.
[3991] Joh. xi. 39, 44.
[3992] Luke i. 79.
[3993] Matt. ix. 27; cf. Luke xviii. 35-38.
[3994] Mark x. 50.
[3995] Isa. xxx. 15, LXX.
[3996] Ps. li. 5, 7.
[3997] Luke xiii. 11-13.
[3998] Gen. iv. 7, LXX.
[3999] An etymological allusion. Nod = ebb and flow.'
[4000] Num. xxv. 6-8.
[4001] 2 Sam. xiii. 14.
[4002] 1 Kings xxi. 13.
[4003] 1 Kings xxi. 29.
[4004] Ezek. xviii. 4.
[4005] 1 Sam. viii. 3.
[4006] 1 Sam. ii. 12-17, 22.
[4007] 1 Sam. iv. 18.
[4008] 2 Sam. vi. 6, 7.
[4009] Sacerdotes, lit. priests.
[4010] 2 Cor. xi. 14, 15.
[4011] Matt. vii. 15.
[4012] i.e. to the church at large represented by individual virgins.
[4013] Heb. vi. 6, 7-8.