A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

432 A Source Book for Ancient Church History(l) Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum, I, 7. (MSL, 23:229.)The inferiority of marriage to virginity.While the Church teachers insisted on the indissolubility ofmarriage and its sanctity, in not a few cases they depreciatedmarriage. Of those who did this Jerome may be regarded as themost characteristic and representative of a tendency which hadset in, largely in connection with the increase of monasticism,regarded as the only form of Christian perfection.[394]“It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” 148 If it is good notto touch a woman, it is bad to touch one; for nothing is opposedto goodness but the bad. But if it be bad and the evil is pardoned,it is conceded that a worse evil may not happen. But what sortof good is that which is allowed only because there may besomething worse? He would have never added, “Let each manhave his own wife,” unless he had previously said, “But becauseof fornication.”… “Defraud ye not one another, except it be byconsent for a season, that ye may give yourselves unto prayer.”What, I pray, is the quality of that good thing which hindersprayer, which does not allow the body of Christ to be received?So long as I do a husband's part, I fail in continency. The sameApostle in another place commands us to pray always. 1499. “It is better to marry than to burn.” If marriage itself begood, do not compare it with fire, but simply say, “It is good tomarry.” I suspect the goodness of that thing which must be onlythe lesser of two evils. What I want is not the smaller evil, but athing that is absolutely good.148 See I Cor. 7:1 ff.149 Cf. Council of Carthage, A. D. 398, Can. 13. “When the bridegroom andbride are to be blessed by the priest they are to be presented by their parents andparanymphs. And let them when they have received the benediction remain invirginity the same night out of reverence for the benediction.”