From the faithful David he learned to tear the sword from the hands of his enemies, and to cut off the head of the most haughty Goliath with his own sword. In Deuteronomy (ch. 21) he read the command of the Lord that a captive wife should shave her head and eyebrows, cut off all the hair and nails on her body, and then marry her. What wonder if I, too, for the charm of expression and the beauty of the limbs, want to make worldly wisdom out of a slave and captive of Israel, cut off or cut off all that is dead from her – idolatry, voluptuousness, error, debauchery – and, united with her purest body, bear children to the Lord of hosts?..

Celsus[82] and Porphyry[83] wrote against us; they were very courageously opposed by Origen[84], the second by Methodius[85], Eusebius[86] and Appolinarus[87]... Read them, and you will see that I know very little in comparison with them, and, having spent so much time in idleness, as if in a dream, I remember only what I learned in my childhood. Julian Augustus, during the Parthian campaign, vomited seven books against Christ, and, according to the fables of the poets, killed himself with his sword. If I try to write against him, will you forbid me to beat this mad dog with the stick of Hercules, the doctrine of the philosophers and the Stoics?.. Josephus, proving the antiquity of the Jewish people, wrote two books against Apion, the Alexandrian grammarian[89]; in them he presents so many testimonies from secular writers that it seems to me a miracle that a Jew, brought up from childhood on the Holy Scriptures, read the entire library of the Greeks. What is to be said of Philo, whom critics call the second or Jewish Plato? [90]..

I pass on to Latin writers. Who is more educated than him, who is wittier than Tertullian? [91] His "Apologetics" and the books "Against the Gentiles" include all pagan learning. Minucius Felix, a lawyer from the Roman Forum, in a book entitled "Octavius" and in another, "Against the Mathematicians" (unless the inscription is mistaken in naming the author), what did he leave untouched from the writings of the pagans? Arnobius93 published seven books against the pagans, and the same number was published by his disciple Lactantius,94 who wrote two more books: "On Wrath" and "On the Work of the Lord." If you want to read these books, you will find in them nothing more than an abbreviation of Cicero's dialogues...

Hilary, the confessor and bishop of my time, imitated the twelve books of Quintilian both in style and in the number of works, and in a short book against the physician Dioscorus showed that he was strong in the secular sciences. The presbyter Juvenk[95] under Constantine depicted the history of the Lord the Savior in verse: he was not afraid to subordinate the greatness of the Gospel to the laws of the meter. Silence about others, both living and dead, in whose writings both their knowledge and their aspirations are evident.

And do not be deceived by the false thought that this is permissible only in writings against the pagans, and that in other discourses secular learning should be avoided, because the books of all of them, except those who, like Epicurus, did not study the sciences, abound in information from secular sciences and philosophy. I give here only what comes to mind when dictating, and I am sure that you yourself know what has always been in use among learned people.

However, I think that through you this question is offered to me by another, which, perhaps—I remember Sallust's favorite stories—bears the name of Calpurnius, called Wool. Please tell him, toothless, not to envy the teeth of those who eat, and, being blind as a mole, not to degrade the sight of wild goats. On this score, as you see, we can talk for a long time, but, for lack of space for writing, it is time to finish.

To Domnion

Your letter sounds like love and reproach at the same time. Love belongs to you; thanks to it you fear for us even that which is not dangerous; reproaches belong to those who do not love and, seeking an opportunity to sin, slander their brother and their mother's son and set a stumbling block (Psalm 49:20). You write that a monk wandering and shouting in the streets, at crossroads, at the crossroads, at the crossroads, a hook-maker, cunning only to deprive someone of another's honor, trying to extract a twig from the eye of his neighbor with the beam of his own eye—you write that this monk is floundering against me, and with a dog's tooth biting, tearing, crushing the books I have written against Jovinian. You write that this dialectician of your city and the adornment of the Plautus family has not read Aristotle's Categories, nor On Interpretation, nor the Analyst, nor even Cicero's Rhetoric, but among the uneducated and at feasts with women he weaves senseless syllogisms and seems to unravel our sophisms by cunning arguments. So foolish am I, that I did not hope to know all the above without the help of philosophers, and I preferred the end of the style by which what was written to be erased, to the end by which it was written. In vain also did I review Alexander's comments; in vain did the learned instructor introduce me to logic through Porphyry; and, to say nothing of human knowledge, I had Gregory of Nazianzus and Didymus as my catechists in the Holy Scriptures; it was useless for me to become acquainted with the Hebrew language and to study the law, the prophets, the Gospel and the Apostle every day from my youth to the present age.

There has been found a man who is perfect without a teacher (a spirit-bearer and self-taught) who surpasses Tullius in eloquence, Aristotle in arguments, Plato in wisdom, Aristarchus in education, Chalcanter in many writings, Didymus and all the scholars of our time in knowledge of the holy books. He needs only a subject for reasoning, and, like Carneades, he can reason both ways, that is, both in favor of the truth and against the truth. The world was saved from danger, and hereditary or judicial disputes were saved from the abyss because this man, having left the square, found himself in the bosom of the Church. Who can be innocent when he does not want to? And what criminal will not be saved by his speech when he begins to lay out the case on his fingers and stretch the web of his syllogisms? He has only to kick, fix his eyes, wrinkle his brow, shake his hand, stroke his beard — by this alone he will throw a fog before the eyes of the judges. Why should I be surprised if I, who had long been absent and without practice in the Latin language, had become half Greek and barbarian, was overcome by this man, the wittiest and strongest in Latin? Jovinian was also overwhelmed by the mass of his eloquence, although he was not absent. (Good Jesus! What a man this Jovinian is! His works can only be understood by one who sings exclusively for himself and for the Muses.) Please, most dear father, persuade this monk not to speak contrary to his podvig, so that, promising chastity with his clothes, he does not undermine it with words; so that, being a virgin or an abstinent (he knows this), he would not equate married men with virgins, and not argue in vain for so long with a most eloquent husband. I hear, moreover, that this monk makes the rounds of the cells of widows and maidens and philosophizes among them about sacred subjects with an air of solemnity. What does he teach women in secret in their bedroom? Is it so that they know that it is all the same whether they are a virgin or a married woman, so that they do not waste their blossoming age, so that they eat and drink and go to the bath, take care of cleanliness and do not neglect ointments? Or, on the contrary, does it teach chastity, fasting and non-washing of the body? Of course, he teaches that which is full of virtue. So let him admit in society what he says at home. And if he teaches the same things at home as in society, then he should be removed from communication with maidens. I am amazed that a young man, a monk who is eloquent in his own opinion (from whose lips flow love speeches, whose graceful speech is sprinkled with comic salt and gaiety), is not ashamed to go round the houses of nobles, to exchange greetings with matrons, to turn our religion into a battle and the Christian faith into a verbal debate, and at the same time to take away the honor of his neighbor. If this young monk thinks I am mistaken, for we all sin much. Whoever does not sin in word is a perfect man (James 3:2), then he should have either rebuked me in writing, or asked me, as did the learned and glorious man Pammachius, to whom I answered as far as possible, and in a rather extensive letter explained what and in what sense I had said. Pammachius, at least, imitated your modesty, for you, too, having selected from my work those passages which seemed tempting to some, arranged them in order, with a request that I either correct or explain them, and did not consider me so mad that in the same book I would speak in favor of marriage. and against marriage.

Let my adversary spare himself, spare me, spare the name of the Christian. Let him know that his monasticism consists not in talking and pacing, but in silence and solitude. Let him read the words of Jeremiah: "It is good for a man when he bears the yoke in his youth; he sits alone and is silent, for He has laid it on him (Lamentations 3:27-28). And if my adversary has taken the censor's rod over all writers, and thinks himself a scholar because he has understood Jovinian (according to the proverb: it is better for the tongue-tied to understand the words of the tongue-tied), then, according to the judgment of Attilius, we confess: you write everything. Even Jovinian himself, who writes illiterately, will quite justly say the following: "If I am condemned by the bishops, it is not lawful; I do not want this or that person to speak against me, who can suppress me with his authority, but cannot bring me to reason. Let my husband, whose language I understand, write against me; If I defeat him, I will win over all of them at once. I know very well (believe my experience) "what he is like when he rises on his shield, with what swiftness he throws a spear" (Aeneid, 10). He is brave, affectionate and stubborn in arguments, and his head is full of cunning schemes. Often from night to evening he shouted against us in the streets; And he has the sides and strength of an athlete, and his body is graceful and strong. He seems to be secretly a follower of my teachings. In addition, he never blushes, does not reflect on what he says and how much he says, and has acquired such a fame of eloquence that his words are repeated by shaggy people. How many times in society did he force me to overeat and bring me to cholera? How many times did he spit and leave spat upon? But these are all simple things that any of my followers can do. I invite my opponent to write books — to leave a memory for posterity. Let us converse in writing, and let the silent reader judge of us; as I lead a crowd of disciples, so let the Gnaphonics or the Formionics be called by the name of my opponent."

It is of no importance, my dear Domnion, to talk in the corners and in the dwellings of charlatans and to say unfoundedly: "This one has said well, and this one has said evil; this one knows the Scriptures, and this one is delirious; the one is eloquent, and this one is completely wordless." Who judges all those by whose sentence he has earned that right? Only jesters and people who are always ready for strife tend to rattle against someone everywhere at the crossroads and collect curses, not incriminating points. Let my adversary reach out, take up the style, trouble himself, and put what he can into writing. Let him give us an opportunity to respond to his eloquence. I know how to bite myself, if I want, I can hurt myself. And we learned to read and write: "And we often put our hands under the ferula" (Juvenal). And of us it may be said, "He has hay on his horns; run on" (Horace). But I rather want to be a disciple of Him Who said: I have given My back to them that smite, and My cheeks to them that smite; He did not hide My face from mockery and spitting (Isaiah 50:6); Being reviled, He did not reproach each other (1 Pet. 2:23), and after being scolded, crossed, scourged, and cursed, in conclusion He prayed for those who crucified, saying: Father, forgive them! Forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). And I forgive the erring brother: I know that he has been deceived by the cunning of the devil. In the circle of women, he seemed to himself learned and eloquent. When my works reached Rome, he was afraid to meet in me a rival, and cut short my spreading fame, so that there would be no one on earth who was pleasing to his eloquence, except those whose power he did not spare but yielded, whom he did not respect, but feared. The experienced man wanted, like an old soldier, to strike down both fighters with one blow of the sword and show the people that the Scriptures had exactly the meaning he wanted. Let him deign to send us his speech, and not by reproach, but by admonition, to correct our chattering. Then he will understand that the square is one thing, and the study is another, it is another thing to discuss the dogmas of the Divine law among the spindles and baskets of maidens, and another thing among learned men. Now he freely and shamelessly declares to the people about me that I condemn marriages, and speaks strongly against me, and, in the midst of pregnant women, the cries of babies and wedding beds, he is silent about what the Apostle says, only to arouse hatred towards me. And when he begins to write, bumps into me, and either offers something of the Scriptures himself, or listens to what I have to offer, then he will sweat, then he will think it over. Epicurus away, Aristippus farther away, the swineherds will not come, the pig will not grunt.

And we, father, do not sword with a weak hand Arrows and iron, and from our wound Blood flows. Aeneid, 12

If my adversary does not want to write, but thinks to get away with only curses, then let him at least hear the echo of my voice from so many lands, rivers, and peoples that divide us: "I do not condemn marriage, I do not condemn marriage." And in order that my adversary may hold my thought more firmly, I will add: I want all those who, perhaps, for fear of the night, cannot sleep alone, to enter into marriage.