for their parents bounty whereas they be not able to pay the principal Contrariwise that there is no argument so pregnant to conuince them of Atheisme as by despising their parents and trespassing neuer so sleightly against them The other vtters himselfe thus What makes yong men now a daies so soone turne schismatiques why saith he they do not honor their parents as they ought to do as if he should haue said it is no great wonder if they forsake the faith and religion of their forefathers when they once take a taste of contempt and disobedience against their naturall parents Good God if such disloyall behauiour might either be endured or commended what ought this to be a time for such tolleration to be a place where there is scarce to be found any one who by some meanes or other claimes not an immunity from doing his duty to God or the king or the Magistrate or lastly to his Elders why but all these preheminences are to be found in a father all these relations of duty in a son Is it then honest and conuenient for mee to shew any countenance to him that besides his gracelesse neglect of mee is so vngratefull and irreuerent In the latter daies as S. Paul writeth to Timothie there shall come perilous times men shall be louers of themselues blasphemers disobedient to fathers and mothers vngratefull without naturall affection Shouldst thou now replie and say why but good father after I am once profest into religion I will honor you a great deale the more I will esteem of you much more highly than before I tell thee againe duty can neuer spring from disobedience Besides all this I would faine know what colour can be giuen why those grand schoole men as Scotus Durandus Aquinas Paludanus Dominicus Soto and many mo should enter into such serious and deepe disputes whether the children of infidells might lawfullie be baptized against their parents will Thomas absolutelie holds that they may not and saies that the Church neuer permitted such a baptism not Pope Siluester to Constantine the great nor S. Ambrose to Theodosius And yet to make no question of maintaining this doctrine that our children may bind themselues by a religious vow though the father neuer so much protest against it Doubtlesse if the parents be christians the generall tenent is that they may be forceably compelled to initiate their children in the same religion but if it be but a particular rule or couent of Regulars then they hold they may not for that is left to their owne discretions As for example they say that to be baptized in the faith of Christ it is sufficient for any but to be of Dominickes or S. Austins order it is not necessary But were a man Iew or Gentile Saint Thomas peremptorily denies that either in case he bee of full age hee should be violently constrained or being vnder yeares his parents should bee forced to yeeld their consent to his baptisme And the Toletane Councell whereof you shall finde Recorde in Gratians decrees at the fiue and fortith distinction in the chapter of the Iews And Gregory the greate writing to Virgilius and Theodorus Bishoppes of Fraunce in his fiue and fortieth Epistle If you list saith he you may speake him fairelye and aske him whether hee likes better to liue in a cloyster then in the worlde at large But I pray you tell mee is it force or fayre dealing when such a promise as this hath beene extorted from him as to say I will be a monke afterwards to keep him a close prisoner or to lead and driue him vp and downe to the intent he shall neuer light vpon his father or any one of his kinne which might perchance diuert him from that resolution which was put vpon him before hee came to yeares or in the prime of his youth when as Cicero saith counsell and discretion is at the weakest What sir are you become an other Hercules Prodicus that must forsooth by and by be wise as soone as you are eighteene what is there no other course to be held for the furnishing of Churches and monasteries but that children doe presently abiure their parents sight and company as if they were banished persons the Church of God neuer allowed of this course but in the childreÌ„ of the Iews which was to this end that hauing bene once voluntarily Christned they might not afterwards relapse into their parents errors And so it is in the Canon But for one Christian brother to suspect or distrust an other in such a case as this of infidelity or Iudaisme what manner of strange Gospell were this how can any man make this good that whereas by the discipline of the Church Priests may not blesse the married couple if they be not giuen by their parents a Bishop of one Diocese may not giue orders to one of another Diocese without the leaue of his Diocesan A Clarke that is a forrayner may not bee entertained to serue any where without letters dimissoryes or a certificat from him that made him but our sonnes and our daughters may make vowes which shal be admited accepted of though there beno giuing no coÌ„mending of them no aprouing of them yet the vovv must stil be obserued And now at length to conclude all this discourse whatsoeuer hath beene hitherto alleadged against thee reckon thou of it at thy pleasure make as light account of my fatherly authority as thou wilt or rather as they please to command thee to make with whom thou liuest in so blessed and deifying an estate yet such as be well borne not of base kinde will bee of a different opinion from thee and thinke it built vppon foure maine columnes The principal piller which beares vp the fabrique is the indignation of the liuing God that esteemes a wrong done to parents as done to himselfe How ill is the report of him that forsaketh his Father saith the Preacher and accursed of God that is bitter to his mother The second is the iudgement of banishment which the Father pronounceth against him for his vndutifulnesse Depart from me come no more in my sight for albeit as it should appeare thou hast but a very meane conceipt of it yet very certaine it is that Gods seuerity is then greatest when a Father wil not vouchsafe to see his childe a Prince not deigne to looke vpon his subiect nor admit them vnto their presence which ought to be most gladsom cheerfull to them I said Gods seueritie was then greatest for is it not so that euerlasting damnation of body and soule consisteth only in the depriuatioÌ„ of Gods blessed vision and Gods blessed 〈◊〉 the wages and reward that man can 〈◊〉 for from God And men vse to be must seuere likewise in this kind For Dauid punished Absalon so Wherupon after two yeeres space continued in this disgrace oh saith hee if my Father bee yet mindfull of mine iniquity good â—oab be thou a suiter for mee
to disproue the will of her father which somtimes had borne the office of a Pretor there for that he had bequeathed vnreasonable legacies to her stepmother there came to the hearing of the cause so many fathers together with their children vpon a feare and expectation of which side the fathers or the daugters the sentence should passe that the Iudges as Plinie reports like wise men left the matter as they found it For no other occasion than this least peraduenture if iudgement had been giuen for the daughter other children by her example might in time presume to contest with their parents But to come neerer to the matter in these like questions I would faine learne whom we should follow prophane Philosophers or the blessed Apostle Saint Paul who in his Epistle to the Colossians aduiceth thus Children obey your parents in all things for this is pleasing with God where when he expresly setteth downe in all things hath he not vtterly excluded those two parts of the distinction In some things you must obey in some things you may chuse whether you will obey or no and the conclusion withall we be not bound to obey nay but why did God the father of all parents forbid Adam to eate of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden but that he would trie whether Adam would obey him in all things or no as saith Theophilus to Eutol nor is the obiection worth the standing vpon why but what if the father should command any treasonable practise or attempt against the estate because here is a case put which neuer happens at the hundreds end or so seldome that it would be past ouer in silence and neuer more lookt after Nay contrarie wise as I should thinke the presumption is strong and holds for the father what manner a man soeuer he be good or bad that he will neuer command his sonne that which he in his conscience knowes to be fowle and dishonest Yea let the mother be neuer so lasciuiouslie giuen yet will she traine vp her daughter in chaste and vertuous demeanour Moreouer he that argues this act of a fathers command makes that a reason for his allegation which is mainly against all reason that is he supposes old men doting fooles and yong men graue counsellors he makes the sonne iudge whether the fathers actions be lawfull or against law good in their owne nature or by his construction and surmise And all this can neuer agree to discretion and honesty For so he sowes matter of question and debate where indeed the only vertue should be the vertue so highly esteemed of the noble Lacedemonians to yeeld obedience and that readilie But because error is growne potent and hath giuen such a deepe wound as the scarre will hardlie be couered ouer let vs a little by the way consider what were those neuter and indifferent things which Gellius speaketh of to my remembrance they be these as if saith he thy father bid thee to be a souldier to till his land to be an officer to be an aduocate to marrie a wife to goe vpon his errand come when thou art sent for and such like which in themselues be neither good nor bad but as the intent is and manner of doing them so may they merit blame or commendation For if the father should charge me to marry a wife that were infamous past all shame or disparagious for any enormious crime if he would haue me plead Catiline or Bibulus or Clodius his cause then were his commādement herein not indifferent because here is a troupe of dishonesty one vpon the necke of another So that if his pleasure were to enioin me such actions the question were at an end how far forth I should obey him were it not that the thing which Gellius plainly pronounceth for indifferent as to marrie a wife to enter into this or that kind of life now adaies are taught to be of such nature that consent authoritie of father is nothing thought of or respected in them my sonne may marrie may be a Church man may be a monke not onlie without my leaue but spight of my teeth though I doe expresly forbid him and that which all Vniuersities all Consistories all opinions of learned men without any interruption or impediment haue euer permitted in fauour of naturall dutie that doe these men vnder pretence of faith and religion vtterlie reuerse and disanull But our ensewing discourse shall speciallie in this place be confined within the compasse of religious vowes wherin I must haue leaue to tell thee that either thou art in falt that without any priuity or consent of mine betookest thy selfe thus to the Iesuits order or I am to be blamed that notwithstanding holy Church affoords thee such a libertie grieue and take on for the same For as concerning the argument of mariage the freedom thereof whether parents haue any voice in their childrens bestowing our countriman Paquerius hath written so learnedlie thereof in his Epistles as who should but offer to adde one line to that which he hath written of that subiect might rather preiudice his owne iudgement than any way the picture drawne by the pencill of so curious a workman I must needs confesse that the determination of the Bishops assembled in the Councell of Trent makes much for my contryman his purpose that although clandestine contracts made without the parents aduise and leaue stand for good mariage till the Church disalow them yet neuerthelesse for many weighty and important considerations the Church thought it best altogether to interdict and disauow them It seems she would haue a reseruation in her selfe to determine the controuersie and not permit it ouer to the arbitrement of parents whether such mariages were good and according to lawe or contrarily void and of none effect I must likewise grant that sundry constitutions enacted heretofore by many of our christian Princes in their Diets and Parliaments are pregnant for his purpose namely that such matches are no better than a rape and no mariage at all or if it be they take order to vndoe the mariage knot with the point of an imperiall sword Yet for all that which Paquerius hath written about the question I would pray leaue to adde two notable precedents not with that selfe conceipt or arrogancie as though I meant to confirme or confute ought about the cōtract of maiarge which either the Church or our most illustrious Princes haue beene pleased hitherto in their excellent wisedomes to determine but that our children might hereby know and be well instructed that all that is according to lawe is not therefore by and by according to honestie least perhaps that contempt and neglect which now they measure vnto vs be afterwards by a iust sentence of reuenge written in heauen measured by their children vnto them also The one example is of Rebecca and the woman of Timnath both which although God had appointed the one for Sampson and the
withstand it in a worde whereas thou hast reuolted to the Iesuites companie t is not paganisme that thou hast forsaken but the holy fellowship and Communion of thy Christian brethren Why then dost thou not vpon thy bare knees aske me forgiuenes thou hast more reason so to doe sonne than euer Saluianus had for hee in humility acknowledged his offence but thou canst not be brought to confesse thine Now I pray thee sonne bethink thy selfe how greeuously this holy man would haue bene affrighted with the remorse of his disobedience if hee had offered such wrong I will not say to Idolatrous parents such as they vvere but to beleeuing whereas he takes on so much for being the occasion of their heauinesse which were yet infidells and not his parents by birth but by affinitie only and thought himselfe no good Christian for not honoring them as Gods cōmandement would haue enioined to honour his naturall parents that is without distinction of being good or bad Iew or Gentile faithfull or vnbeleeuer Doubtlesse hee tooke this lesson out of Aristaeus where King Ptolomie asking one of the 72. interpreters how he might be kind and thankfull to his parents receiued this answere that the next way was neuer to grieue or molest them Or else he had read the description of the last iudgement in the Poet where they are ranked among the damned ghosts by Sibyila That do forsake their aged Sires and care not to reward Their parents which did foster them or spitefullie refuse To doe them seruice at their need or them with soornes abuse Certain it is that Bishop Faustus in his first booke De libero arbitrio and the twelfth chapter interpreting those words in the Gospell Let vs nowfeast and bee merry for this my sonne was dead and is aliue lost and now is found expounds the losse to be his departure from his father he was not lost in person saith he but he that forsooke his father and by such his contempt was no better than a dead man by a dutifull desire that he had to come home to his father was againe reuiued and restored to life For as it was a sinne in him to trauaile into a far countrie out of his kind fathers presence so was it a point of his good nature and dutie resolutelie to change his course and to returne with teares to his fathers mercifull embracements And now I take it to be high time to cease to instance any farther by example and directly passe ouer to the decrees and Canons of the Church least happilie it be replied that all which is hitherto alleadged is but for particular ends and not sufficient to proue the generall assertion For albeit I must ingenuouslie confesse an Idolatrous father may be destituted and forsaken by his sonne if hee should offer vpon violence to compel him to Paganisme as Theodoret hath it it his third booke and fourteene and 22. Chapters and Chrysostome in his second booke against such as discommend the retired and solitarie life yet if there be no compulsion vsed I can shew you generall and prouinciall Councels both which haue ordained that neither the father may forsake the sonne nor the sonne the father nor the wife her husband nor the seruant his master for this cause only that they differ in religion Sir it is not your Friars cowle nor Monks habit nor anie order of knighthood that ye can enter into shall euer be able to raz or blot out that fast tie and obligation which in this case God and men haue interchangeablie sealed and deliuered the one to the other It is a fashion well becomming Barbarians and heretiques so saith Bishop Victor in his first booke De persecutione Vandalica to separate husbands from their wiues or children from their parents And when Valentinian the Emperor like a most glorious Prince had authorised the profession of Christian religion and the citie of Carthage whence by reason of Arrianisme it was for a season exiled the first worke that the Bishop did was that al mariages should hold though the parties were of different religion and parents should haue their children againe that the Arrians had forceably taken from them So then to begin our relation with the story of a slaue If he would fall off from his master because he was a Gentile or a Iew might not the fauour of libertie but especiallie of religion plead his excuse the Canons which bee tearmed the Canons of the Apostles flatlie say no. If seruants bee promoted to holie orders without their masters consent ipso facto their masters may challenge them backe againe for slaues it is to be found in the 81. Chapter But if any person of seruile condition be worthie the degree of holy orders as was One simus and the master yeeld therunto after they be enfranchised and made free men it may bee done The Councell of Gangrene which was held An. 324 and somewhat after the Nicene forbids it likewise saying Let him be accursed whosoeuer he be that shall seduce another mans seruant to be vndutifull to his master vnder colour or occasion of his religion and doth not rather teach him to serue him with an honest heart and all due obseruance that so he may be a free man of Christ as Ignatius supplies it let him be accursed Certaine it is that this is to be ment of the slaues of hethen and the religion there mentioned is to be intended of the Christian But in the Councell held at Orleance vnder King Childebert there is a great deale more for ouer and besides that it disauowes the voluntary oblation of a slaue to the seruice of the Church without his masters knowledge it laies a penalty vpon the Bishop that so admits him to wit that in six months after he is not to celebrate Iustinian in his 123. nouell Constitution apointed a certaine time wherin the master was to recouer his slaue from the Church but Leo the 9 made an act that the challenge should still hold and be perpetuall Yea but if you say the case is altered in a Monk for his estate being regular is more to be priuiledged than a secular priest Charlēmaine as it should appeare by a certaine constitution of his is of a contrarie opinion Let no man saith he entice another mans slaue to become a Priest or a Monk without leaue and license of his master you may read the Act in the 20. and 27. Chapter The primitiue Church obserued as much not that she thought God was any way dishonored by the ministerie of a poore slaue for with God all men are alike how then Tertullian against the heretique Martion will giue you the reason Saith he what action is there more vniust wrongfull and wicked than so to demerit my seruant with your kindnes as that neuer afterwards he shal liue to doe me any more seruice another man shall lay claime to him and let me haue any suit in law he shall produce him for a witnes
point of violence forced to paganisme and Idolatry But sure it is that the Councells meaning neuer was that Children should forsake their parents because they were Christians for it saith in expresse words Let children reuerence their parents if for no other ende yet for this because they are Christians a reason as I conceiue that will euer holde for Christians for Vigoreus a writer of our time cites the same Synode to this very purpose But it will not bee amisse in my opinion to set downe the cause and occasion of the summoning of this Synode It was not because Pagan parents did make it their complaint of grieuance that their children did abandon and forsake them the cause was clean contrarie which was that they which were Christians left them which were of their owne profession and religion malapert and sawcie sonnes and trespasse so against their parents as thou hast lately done against mee marry the difference if any bee is this that they in former time affected a true monasticall retired life and thou according to the fashion of the time dost affect a professiō barelie consisting in an habit of apparell and formalitie of words they crucified the worlde to the flesh and the flesh to the vvorlde but men of your coate saue halfe the labour and crucifie the world onlie From whence then comes such a corruption in this discipline I will tell you About the time that some newe fangled fellowes sprung vp in the Church and termed themselues Anchorites Eremites or Monkes there steps me vp one Eustatius who led by an inconsiderate zeale began wheresoeuer hee came to thunder out those glorious magnificent words written in the Gospell that they were vnworthy of Christ that loued Father or mother more than Christ and thereupon to inferre that all things in the world are to bee contemned and set at naught as house posisessions parents children brethren yea and to make short worke all the vniuersal world the better to liue in some solitary hermitage vnder some rule and in some company seuered and shut from all men And why so thinke you because it was nothing worth to bee a Christian except you had bene also of the order of Eustatius But what was the issue of this Doctrine Sir this that the wife wold leaue her husband and be his wife the seruant his master and he his seruant the parents their children and they their parents that Christians set light by marriage and all duty else which euery man owes vnto his countrie that religion which was wont to keepe all in good order was now become ringleader to all confusion and disorder Lastly that the Gentiles might well say and Zozimus by name The Christians be barren unfruitfull in all affairs of dutie which is a speech that Tertullian in his apologeticus holds to be the most disgracefull scandalous that ouer yet was vttered against Christians But the sectaries of Eustatius reioynde why but this desertion is because wee would bee the freer for the seruice of God But the Fathers assembled in Councell condemne this faire occasion and prooued full whole that it was an act far more Christianlike and Religious to worship and loue our parents for that is the commandement of God than so to serue God as thereby to despise the parents a thing which he vtterly forbids For God and parents may well bee honoured together but no man liuing can truely worship God without he honor his parents also Therupon this new founder Eustatius shortly after changed his copy and came to be a Bishop in the Church and not a cloisterer And that this was the true occasion of assembling that Councell the very letter of that Councell as also Socrates Sozomen Isidor and Gratian in his 16. and 30. Distinct doe apparantly testifie How now sir Will so many and so waighty authorities do no good with you for I thank you you haue beene bold to set my authority at naught or are you eftsoones perswaded that should I affoord my consent neuer so much you could not yet bee a true and absolute Iesuite peraduenture you are yet some what grauelled in this doubt so then let vs take some view of that which they alleadge vnto you out of S. Hierome and withall consider whether there be any cloyster Diuinity or new found Gospel lately sprung vp among them to repeale these auncient Canons and decrees of the Church which you in your braue ruffe doe so lightly esteeme of It may not be denied but that S. Hierome writing to Heliodorus in commendation of a solitary life vseth these words should thy little nephewe hang fast clasping about thy neck thy mother with her tresses disheueled about her ears renting tearing her garmēts discouer those paps which gaue thee sucke should thy father that begate thee lie downe before thee in the way passe ouer thy father and trample him vnder thy feete shed not a teare but with an heroicall resolution flye towring vp in high speed to the standard of thy Sauiours crosse Sauage cruelty in such a case is your onely pitie Doubtlesse heere is a right noble sentence and well becomming the high spirit of so excellent a Father in the Church but before I cleare the point shew in what meaning this was spoken wherein S. Hierome as it should seeme by this makes such cheape reputation of parents authority and in so dooing dishonours the chastity of all naturall kindnes I would faine see that passage in him concerning parents obedience it is in his Epistle de vitando suspecto contubernio reconciled to this There you shall reade him thus Father and Mother saith he are names of dutie wordes of respect bonds of nature and vnder God the second truce and league of our loue It is none of your commendation to say you loue them not it is a notorious sinne in you if you hate them Our Lord and Sauior Iesus Christ was subiect to his parents He reuerenced that mother to whom hee was father loued that nurce whom he fostered and forgot not that wombe where hee was conceiued nor those armes that so oft bore him You will perhaps replie and say but heere lies the exception when a sonne liuing vnder the gouernment of his Father is once resolutely determined to goe into a monasterie why then hee may bee bolde to forbeare all shew of dutie and passe neither for good nature nor good manners Then crueltie in that case may be interpreted mercie incluilitie good conditions contempt obedience But thinke not good son though S. Hierome vsed such a faire colourable speech to Heliodorus that if hee should haue dealt in earnest with him he would haue aduised him to ben so behaued as his words doe implye God forbid that S. Hierome should euer be taken for principall or accessory in parricide that for the same verie cause that Aeneas was surnamed the pious as Virgil in all places stiles him Amids the scorching flames and thousand shot of darts I
rescued mine aged Syre and made these shoulders bowe To garde him from the enemies troope For an action directly contrarie a Christian man should goe about to merit the same surname appellation or that S. Hierome by any meanes should rather propose wicked Tullia for an instance of pietie that roade in her coach ouer her fathers coarse than deuout Aeneas for an imitation to Heliodorus Yea though hee might purchase thereby all the kingdomes and seignories of the world or all the vast territories of hell where ghostes Lorde it as Painims suppose or lastly that who so profest himselfe a Monke in such a scornefull fashion to his parents should bee better thought of than Cleobis and Piton that drewe their aged mother in a litter to a place where she was to sacrifice in stead of a payre of coâ—tch-horses Or those brethren which for they rescued their impotent parents from the rage of a tempestuos fire the people of Catanna in a reuerence of their deuotion called by no other name than the godlie-children Certainely it is so far from S. Hieromes meaning to haue his words peruerted drawn to the maintenance of such a barbarous crucity and impity as that when hee spake this to Heliodorus neither his Father or mother were then liuing so that the inference is impossible that had his Father mother forbad him to haue beene an Eremite in the wildernes of Syria he would haue gone ouer them and stamped them vnder his feete What then may S. Hieromes meaning be why this After Heliodorus had long time beene a souldier in the wars and dealt much in negotiating of state matters growing into some years and hauing no issue as we tolde you before he bad farewell to the world and in S. Hieromes company which was his puysne vowed a solitary and retyred life and to that end they both entred into a monastery liued there long time together at last Heliâ—dorus had a great longing to see how his onely sister and hir young sonne did and there lo did he alter his former resolution for there he betakes himselfe to the Church and in stead of being a Monke becomes a Cleargy man This was the time without all peraduenture when S. Hierome wrought these matters in commendation of the monasticall life beeing for yeares but a stripling and almost a very boy as he speaks of himselfe in another place and comming fresh from the vniuersity then he vseth these flourishing speeches vnto him alluding from his secular to the heauenly warfare interlacing withall such strong motiues and perswasions as friends vse often to their friends all to this purpose in effect that wheras we are commanded to be Eunuches for Christs sake to put the verie eies out of our head if they offend to leaue and forsake all that we haue in this present worlde as if the case were desperate for a rich man euer to come to heauen a point whereof S. Austen discourses excellently in his 89. epistle to Hilarius not to be carefull for to morrow to turne thy left cheeke to him that smites thee on the right and many moe sayings of the like nature which were they literally vnderstood and not spiritually without question would fill the Church full with heresies and yet concerning worldlie vvealth doth not S. Austen in an Epistle to Bonifacius tell vs a valiant Christian minded man should not be puft vp if he haue it nor be deiected if he loose it vvas not Leontius a Bishop of Laodicea condemned of the Church for dismembring himselfe vvhereupon Anastasius a Bishop of Nice in his 73. and 79 question saith vvhat is meant by this Gospell if thy right eie offend thee or thy right hand cut it off from thee Christ meant it not of our bodilie parts and members God forbid but of our friends and kinsfolke for hee slanders Gods workmanship that dismembers himselfe And euen S. Hierome himselfe hath he not vvritten so manie things in that strain of vehemencie for commendation of virginitie and single life that he seems in a manner to disallow and condemne all mariage yet questionles he neuer meant it For were it so that he spake as he thought and perswaded Heliodorus rather to make his way ouer his fathers body than to forsake that blissefull estate which as it seems in your conceipt the cloister affoords why then would he prefer Priesthood before it indeed he confesseth that Heliodorus answer may serue any other mans turne else but cannot serue his owne who hauing profest in precise tearmes the actiue life might not without blame renouÌ„ce his former profession and betake himselfe to an order of higher perfection as namely Priesthood Indead he describes the good and happie estate of them that liue in monasteries and likewise how perilous and subiect to all manner of temptations their condition is that liue at large in the world and saith he was a glad man to see him come vp so high but very fearefull to thinke of his fall So that he blames not Heliodorus for leauing his cloister nor his entrings into Priesthood nay he perswades him not directly to forsake the one and returne to the other But because first he reuolted from being a souldier to become a Monke and afterwards grew wearie of his cowle abjuring the profession which he vndertook in S. Ieromes company his endeauour is now by these forceable reasons or rather rhetorique schemes and colours to draw him backe againe into his monasterie And as for these words of the Gospell he that loueth father or mother more than me I pray marke whether Heliodorus answered S. Hierom well that they were to be vnderstood in case of martyrdome or whether S. Hieromes reply to this answer be sufficient But be it as it may be that no man should stand to too stiffelie vpon the authoritie of that speech which is not altogether so true as neat and elegant obseruing more his words than his meaning for an vpshopt of all when he came to riper yeeres he recants that opinion in an epistle written to Nepotian who by this time also was both in yeers and discretion grown to be a man And as concerning such arguments as he had proposed to Heliodorus he saith he did it as a yong man after the fashion of the schooles when the fire of his study and learning in Rhetorique was not clean beat out of him for verily at that time a man might freely enter into a monasterie and when him list leaue him And then the question was idle whether a man might follow this course of life without his parents liking because then there was no such obligation by vowes as now a daies there is and had a man misliked of his profession his punishment was none other but the imputation of lightnesse and inconstancie which is euident out of S. Austins epistle to his friend Boniface The profession of being a Monke in those daies was nothing else but the meditation and exercise of the ancient