To Eustochium

Ad Eustochium

(Note: This English synopsis is not a translation of the Latin version.)

The terms are chosen for decency’s sake, but the reproductive organs of the two sexes are meant. Thus, the descendant of David, who, according to the promise is to sit upon his throne, is said to come from his loins.⁸⁴ And the seventy-five souls descended from Jacob who entered Egypt are said to come out of his thigh.⁸⁵ So, also, when his thigh shrank after the Lord had wrestled with him,⁸⁶ he ceased to beget children. The Israelites, again, are told to celebrate the passover with loins girded and mortified.⁸⁷ God says to Job: “Gird up thy loins as a man.”⁸⁸ John wears a leathern girdle.⁸⁹ The apostles must gird their loins to carry the lamps of the Gospel.⁹⁰ When Ezekiel tells us how Jerusalem is found in the plain of wandering, covered with blood, he uses the words: “Thy navel has not been cut.”⁹¹ In his assaults on men, therefore, the devil’s strength is in the loins; in his attacks on women his force is in the navel.

Some people may be eunuchs from necessity; I am one of free will.¹³² “There is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. There is a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together.”¹³³ Now that out of the hard stones of the Gentiles God has raised up children unto Abraham,¹³⁴ they begin to be “holy stones rolling upon the earth.”¹³⁵ They pass through the whirlwinds of the world, and roll on in God’s chariot on rapid wheels. Let those stitch coats to themselves who have lost the coat woven from the top throughout;¹³⁶ who delight in the cries of infants which, as soon as they see the light, lament that they are born. In paradise Eve was a virgin, and it was only after the coats of skins that she began her married life. Now paradise is your home too. Keep therefore your birthright and say: “Return unto thy rest, O my soul.”¹³⁷ To show that virginity is natural while wedlock only follows guilt, what is born of wedlock is virgin flesh, and it gives back in fruit what in root it has lost. “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a flower shall grow out of his roots.”¹³⁸ The rod¹³⁹ is the mother of the Lord—simple, pure, unsullied; drawing no germ of life from without but fruitful in singleness like God Himself. The flower of the rod is Christ, who says of Himself: “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.”¹⁴⁰ In another place He is foretold to be “a stone cut out of the mountain without hands,”¹⁴¹ a figure by which the prophet signifies that He is to be born a virgin of a virgin. For the hands are here a figure of wedlock as in the passage: “His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me.”¹⁴² It agrees, also, with this interpretation that the unclean animals are led into Noah’s ark in pairs, while of the clean an uneven number is taken.¹⁴³ Similarly, when Moses and Joshua were bidden to remove their shoes because the ground on which they stood was holy,¹⁴⁴ the command had a mystical meaning. So, too, when the disciples were appointed to preach the gospel they were told to take with them neither shoe nor shoe-latchet;¹⁴⁵ and when the soldiers came to cast lots for the garments of Jesus¹⁴⁶ they found no boots that they could take away. For the Lord could not Himself possess what He had forbidden to His servants.

Alium eunuchum necessitas faciat, me voluntas. "Tempus amplexandi, et tempus abstinendi a complexibus: tempus mittendi lapides, et tempus colligendi" (Eccles. 3. 5). Postquam de duritia nationum generati sunt filii Abrahae, coeperunt "sancti lapides volvi super terram" (Zach. 9. 16). Petranseunt quippe mundi istius turbines, et in curru Dei, rotarum celeritate volvuntur. Consuant tunicas, qui inconsutam desursum tunicam perdiderunt, quos vagitus delectat infantium, in ipso lucis exordio fletu lugentium quod nati sunt. Eva in paradiso virgo fuit: post pelliceas tunicas, initium sumpsit nuptiarum. Tua regio paradisus est. Serva quod nata es, et dic: "Revertere anima mea in requiem tuam" (Ps. 124. 7). Et ut scias virginitatem esse naturae, nuptias post delictum: virgo nascitur caro de nuptiis, et in fructu reddens, quod in radice perdiderat. "Exiet virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet" (Isai. 11. 1). Virga Mater est Domini, simplex, pura, sincera, nullo extrinsecus germine cohaerente, et ad similitudinem Dei unione foecunda. Virgae flos Christus est, dicens: "Ego flos campi, et lilium convallium" (Cant. 2. 1). Qui et in alio loco, lapis praedicatur abscissus de monte sine manibus" (Dan. 2), significante Propheta, virginem nasciturum esse de Virgine. Manus quippe accipiuntur pro opere nuptiarum, ut ibi: "Sinistra ejus sub capite meo, et dextera illius amplexabitur me" (Cant. 2). In hujus sensus congruit voluntatem etiam illud, quod animalia, quae in Arcam Noe bina inducuntur, immunda sunt: impar enim numerus est mundus. Et Moyses et Jesus Nave nudis in sanctam Terram pedibus jubentur incedere. Et discipuli sine calceamentorum onere, et vinculis pellium ad praedicationem novi Evangelii destinantur: Et milites, vestimentis Jesu sorte divisis, caligas non habebant [al. habuere] quas tollerent. Nec enim poterat habere Dominus, quod prohibuerat servis.

Like the ark of the covenant Christ’s spouse should be overlaid with gold within and without;¹⁸⁴ she should be the guardian of the law of the Lord. Just as the ark contained nothing but the tables of the covenant,¹⁸⁵ so in you there should be no thought of anything that is outside. For it pleases the Lord to sit in your mind as He once sat on the mercy-seat and the cherubims.¹⁸⁶ As He sent His disciples to loose Him the foal of an ass that he might ride on it, so He sends them to release you from the cares of the world, that leaving the bricks and straw of Egypt, you may follow Him, the true Moses, through the wilderness and may enter the land of promise. Let no one dare to forbid you, neither mother nor sister nor kinswoman nor brother: “The Lord hath need of you.”¹⁸⁷ Should they seek to hinder you, let them fear the scourges that fell on Pharaoh, who, because he would not let God’s people go that they might serve Him,¹⁸⁸ suffered the plagues described in Scripture. Jesus entering into the temple cast out those things which belonged not to the temple. For God is jealous and will not allow the father’s house to be made a den of robbers.¹⁸⁹ Where money is counted, where doves are sold, where simplicity is stifled where, that is, a virgin’s breast glows with cares of this world; straightway the veil of the temple is rent,¹⁹⁰ the bridegroom rises in anger, he says: “Your house is left unto you desolate.”¹⁹¹ Read the gospel and see how Mary sitting at the feet of the Lord is set before the zealous Martha. In her anxiety to be hospitable Martha was preparing a meal for the Lord and His disciples; yet Jesus said to her: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. But few things are needful or one.¹⁹² And Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.”¹⁹³ Be then like Mary; prefer the food of the soul to that of the body. Leave it to your sisters to run to and fro and to seek how they may fitly welcome Christ. But do you, having once for all cast away the burden of the world, sit at the Lord’s feet and say: “I have found him whom my soul loveth; I will hold him, I will not let him go.”¹⁹⁴ And He will answer: “My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her.”¹⁹⁵ Now the mother of whom this is said is the heavenly Jerusalem.¹⁹⁶

Go not from home nor visit the daughters of a strange land, though you have patriarchs for brothers and Israel for a father. Dinah went out and was seduced.²⁰¹ Do not seek the Bridegroom in the streets; do not go round the corners of the city. For though you may say: “I will rise now and go about the city: in the streets and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth,” and though you may ask the watchmen: “Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?”²⁰² no one will deign to answer you. The Bridegroom cannot be found in the streets: “Strait and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life.”²⁰³ So the Song goes on: “I sought him but I could not find him: I called him but he gave me no answer.”²⁰⁴ And would that failure to find Him were all. You will be wounded and stripped, you will lament and say: “The watchmen that went about the city found me: they smote me, they wounded me, they took away my veil from me.”²⁰⁵ Now if one who could say: “I sleep but my heart waketh,”²⁰⁶ and “A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts”;²⁰⁷ if one who could speak thus suffered so much because she went abroad, what shall become of us who are but young girls; of us who, when the bride goes in with the Bridegroom, still remain without? Jesus is jealous. He does not choose that your face should be seen of others. You may excuse yourself and say: “I have drawn close my veil, I have covered my face and I have sought Thee there and have said: ‘Tell me, O Thou whom my soul loveth, where Thou feedest Thy flock, where Thou makest it to rest at noon. For why should I be as one that is veiled beside the flocks of Thy companions?’”²⁰⁸ Yet in spite of your excuses He will be wroth, He will swell with anger and say: “If thou know not thyself, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock and feed thy goats beside the shepherd’s tents.”²⁰⁹ You may be fair, and of all faces yours may be the dearest to the Bridegroom; yet, unless you know yourself, and keep your heart with all diligence,²¹⁰ unless also you avoid the eyes of the young men, you will be turned out of My bride-chamber to feed the goats, which shall be set on the left hand.²¹¹

Cave ne domum exeas, et velis videre filias regionis alienae, quamvis fratres habeas Patriarchas, et Israel parente laeteris: Dina egressa corrumpitur. Nolo te Sponsum quaerere per plateas. Nolo te circumire angulos civitatis, dicas licet: "Surgam, et circumibo civitatem, et in foro, et in plateis quaeram quem dilexit anima mea" (Ibid. 3. 2); et interroges: "Num quem dilexit anima mea, vidistis" (Ibid. 3)? nemo tibi respondere dignabitur. Sponsus in plateis non potest inveniri. "Arcta, et angusta via est, quae ducit ad vitam" (Matth. 7. 14). Denique sequitur: "Quaesivi eum, et non inveni, vocavi eum, et non respondit mihi" (Cant. 5. 6). Atque utinam non invenisse sufficiat! Vulneraberis, nudaberis, et gemebunda narrabis: "Invenerunt me custodes, qui circumeunt civitatem: percusserunt me, et vulneraverunt me, tulerunt theristrum meum mihi" (Ibid. v. 7). Si autem hoc exiens patitur illa, quae dixerat: "Ego dormio, et cor meum vigilat" (Cant. 5. 2). Et, "fasciculus stactes fratruelis meus mihi, in medio uberum meorum commorabitur;" quid de nobis fiet, quae adhuc adolescentulae sumus; quae sponsa intrante cum sponso, remanemus extrinsecus? Zelotypus est Jesus, non vult ab aliis videri faciem tuam. Excuses licet, atque causeris, obducto velamine ora contexi, et quaesivi te ibi, et dixi: "Annuntia mihi, quem dilexit anima mea: ubi pascis, ubi cubas in meridie, ne quando efficiar sicut operta super greges sodalium tuorum" (Cant. 1. 6. juxt. LXX): indignabitur, tumebit, et dicet: "Si non cognoveris teipsam, o pulchra inter mulieres, egredere tu in vestigiis gregum, et pasce haedos tuos in tabernaculis pastorum." Sis licet pulchra, et inter omnes mulieres species tua diligatur a Sponso, nisi te cognoveris, et omni custodia servaveris cor tuum: nisi oculos juvenum fugeris, egredieris de thalamo meo, et pasces haedos, qui statuendi [al. staturi] sunt a sinistris.

Idle persons and busybodies, whether virgins or widows; such as go from house to house calling on married women and displaying an unblushing effrontery greater than that of a stage parasite, cast from you as you would the plague. For “evil communications corrupt good manners,”²³⁸ and women like these care for nothing but their lowest appetites. They will often urge you, saying, “My dear creature, make the best of your advantages, and live while life is yours,” and “Surely you are not laying up money for your children.” Given to wine and wantonness, they instill all manner of mischief into people’s minds, and induce even the most austere to indulge in enervating pleasures. And “when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they will marry, having condemnation because they have rejected their first faith.”²³⁹

Do not seek to appear over-eloquent, nor trifle with verse, nor make yourself gay with lyric songs. And do not, out of affectation, follow the sickly taste²⁴⁰ of married ladies who, now pressing their teeth together, now keeping their lips wide apart, speak with a lisp, and purposely clip their words, because they fancy that to pronounce them naturally is a mark of country breeding. Accordingly they find pleasure in what I may call an adultery of the tongue. For “what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?”²⁴¹ How can Horace go with the psalter, Virgil with the gospels, Cicero with the apostle?²⁴² Is not a brother made to stumble if he sees you sitting at meat in an idol’s temple?²⁴³ Although “unto the pure all things are pure,”²⁴⁴ and “nothing is to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving,”²⁴⁵ still we ought not to drink the cup of Christ, and, at the same time, the cup of devils.²⁴⁶ Let me relate to you the story of my own miserable experience.

But you will say: “I am a girl delicately reared, and I cannot labor with my hands. Suppose that I live to old age and then fall sick, who will take pity on me?” Hear Jesus speaking to the apostles: “Take no thought what ye shall eat; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.”²⁵⁵ Should clothing fail you, set the lilies before your eyes. Should hunger seize you, think of the words in which the poor and hungry are blessed. Should pain afflict you, read “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities,” and “There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.”²⁵⁶ Rejoice in all God’s judgments; for does not the psalmist say: “The daughters of Judah rejoiced because of thy judgments, O Lord”?²⁵⁷ Let the words be ever on your lips: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither;”²⁵⁸ and “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”²⁵⁹

“The love of money is the root of all evil,”²⁶³ and the apostle speaks of covetousness as being idolatry.²⁶⁴ “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.”²⁶⁵ The Lord will never allow a righteous soul to perish of hunger. “I have been young,” the psalmist says, “and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread.”²⁶⁶ Elijah is fed by ministering ravens.²⁶⁷ The widow of Zarephath, who with her sons expected to die the same night, went without food herself that she might feed the prophet. He who had come to be fed then turned feeder, for, by a miracle, he filled the empty barrel.²⁶⁸ The apostle Peter says: “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk.”²⁶⁹ But now many, while they do not say it in words, by their deeds declare: “Faith and pity have I none; but such as I have, silver and gold, these I will not give thee.” “Having food and raiment let us be therewith content.”²⁷⁰ Hear the prayer of Jacob: “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, then shall the Lord be my God.”²⁷¹ He prayed only for things necessary; yet, twenty years afterwards, he returned to the land of Canaan rich in substance and richer still in children.²⁷² Numberless are the instances in Scripture which teach men to “Beware of covetousness.”²⁷³

A similar description is given of the Essenes by Philo,²⁸⁶ Plato’s imitator; also by Josephus,²⁸⁷ the Greek Livy, in his narrative of the Jewish captivity.

Set before you the blessed Mary, whose surpassing purity made her meet to be the mother of the Lord. When the angel Gabriel came down to her, in the form of a man, and said: “Hail, thou that art highly favored; the Lord is with thee,”³⁰¹ she was terror-stricken and unable to reply, for she had never been saluted by a man before. But, on learning who he was, she spoke, and one who had been afraid of a man conversed fearlessly with an angel. Now you, too, may be the Lord’s mother. “Take thee a great roll and write in it with a man’s pen Maher-shalal-hash-baz.”³⁰² And when you have gone to the prophetess, and have conceived in the womb, and have brought forth a son,³⁰³ say: “Lord, we have been with child by thy fear, we have been in pain, we have brought forth the spirit of thy salvation, which we have wrought upon the earth.”³⁰⁴ Then shall your Son reply: “Behold my mother and my brethren.”³⁰⁵ And He whose name you have so recently inscribed upon the table of your heart, and have written with a pen upon its renewed surface³⁰⁶—He, after He has recovered the spoil from the enemy, and has spoiled principalities and powers, nailing them to His cross³⁰⁷—having been miraculously conceived, grows up to manhood; and, as He becomes older, regards you no longer as His mother, but as His bride. To be as the martyrs, or as the apostles, or as Christ, involves a hard struggle, but brings with it a great reward.

All such efforts are only of use when they are made within the church’s pale;³⁰⁸ we must celebrate the passover in the one house,³⁰⁹ we must enter the ark with Noah,³¹⁰ we must take refuge from the fall of Jericho with the justified harlot, Rahab.³¹¹ Such virgins as there are said to be among the heretics and among the followers of the infamous Manes³¹² must be considered, not virgins, but prostitutes. For if—as they allege—the devil is the author of the body, how can they honor that which is fashioned by their foe? No; it is because they know that the name virgin brings glory with it, that they go about as wolves in sheep’s clothing.³¹³ As antichrist pretends to be Christ, such virgins assume an honorable name, that they may the better cloak a discreditable life. Rejoice, my sister; rejoice, my daughter; rejoice, my virgin; for you have resolved to be, in reality, that which others insincerely feign.

For our salvation the Son of God is made the Son of Man.³¹⁷ Nine months He awaits His birth in the womb, undergoes the most revolting conditions,³¹⁸ and comes forth covered with blood, to be swathed in rags and covered with caresses. He who shuts up the world in His fist³¹⁹ is contained in the narrow limits of a manger. I say nothing of the thirty years during which he lives in obscurity, satisfied with the poverty of his parents.³²⁰ When He is scourged He holds His peace; when He is crucified, He prays for His crucifiers. “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”³²¹ The only fitting return that we can make to Him is to give blood for blood; and, as we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, gladly to lay down our lives for our Redeemer. What saint has ever won his crown without first contending for it? Righteous Abel is murdered. Abraham is in danger of losing his wife. And, as I must not enlarge my book unduly, seek for yourself: you will find that all holy men have suffered adversity. Solomon alone lived in luxury and perhaps it was for this reason that he fell. For “whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”³²² Which is best—for a short time to do battle, to carry stakes for the palisades, to bear arms, to faint under heavy bucklers, that ever afterwards we may rejoice as victors? or to become slaves forever, just because we cannot endure for a single hour?³²³

But we, if our food is less appetizing than usual, get sullen, and fancy that we do God a favor by drinking watered wine. And if the water brought to us is a trifle too warm, we break the cup and overturn the table and scourge the servant in fault until blood comes. “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.”³³² Still, unless you use force you will never seize the kingdom of heaven. Unless you knock importunately you will never receive the sacramental bread.³³³ Is it not truly violence, think you, when the flesh desires to be as God and ascends to the place whence angels have fallen³³⁴ to judge angels?

• http://kuyper.calvin.edu/s/schaff/npnf206/htm/v.XIX.htm#v.XXII

• Paracalypsis, Patrologiae - Hiedronimus