passion, they could never have restrained themselves from im-
98 ox CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. [BOOK III.
even in regard to one wife not only exceed the measure necessary for the procreation of chikh-en, but with the shameless licence of a sort of slavish freedom heap up the filth of a still more beastly excess, such men do not believe it possible that the men of ancient times used a number of wives with temperance, looking to nothing but the duty, necessary in the circumstances of the time, of propagating the race ; and what they themselves, who are entangled in the meshes of lust, do not accomplish in tlie case of a single wife, they think utterly impossible in the case of a number of wives.
20. But these same men might say that it is not right even to honour and praise good and holy men, because they themselves when they are honoured and praised, swell with pride, becoming the more eager for the emptiest sort of distinction the more frequently and the more widely they are blown about on the tongue of flattery, and so become so light that a breath of rumour, whether it appear prosperous or adverse, will carry them into the wdiirlpool of vice or dash them on the roclvs of crime. Let them, then, learn how trying and difficult it is for themselves to escape either being caught by the bait of praise, or pierced by the stings of insult ; but let them not measure others by their own standard.
Chap, xx,— Covfisfency of good men in all outward circumstances.
Let them believe, on the contrary, that the apostles of our faith were neither puffed up when they were honoured by men, nor cast down when they were despised. And certainly neither sort of temptation was wanting to those great men.
For they were both cried up by the loud praises of believers, and cried down by the slanderous reports of their persecutors. But the apostles used all these things, as occasion served, and were not corrupted ; and in the same way the saints of old used their wive? with reference to the necessities of their own times, and were not in bondage to lust as they are who refuse to believe these things.
30. For if they liad been under the influence of any such passion, they could never have restrained themselves from im-
])lacable hatred towards their sons, by whom they knew that their wives and concubines were solicited and debauched.