St.Jerome

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Fredric_86

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St.Jerome wrote in his twenty-second Epistle to St. Eustochium that “Virginity is irreparably lost by sexual pleasure, voluntarily and completely experienced”. What is meant by this? Does it mean that one loses the virginity if one masturbates and has an orgasm? Some guy thought it meant that one could have had non-penetrational sex, aslong as it didn’t lead to an orgasm. What is the correct interpretation of this statement by St.Jerome ? 😃
 
It’s just my opinion, of course, but I don’t think that either option would be considered a “complete experience.” They might be sinful, but not lead to the loss of virginity.
 
Fredric_86 said:
St.Jerome wrote in his twenty-second Epistle to St. Eustochium that “Virginity is irreparably lost by sexual pleasure, voluntarily and completely experienced”. What is meant by this? Does it mean that one loses the virginity if one masturbates and has an orgasm? Some guy thought it meant that one could have had non-penetrational sex, aslong as it didn’t lead to an orgasm. What is the correct interpretation of this statement by St.Jerome ? 😃
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I don’t know the answer but this is what Father John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary defines it as:

VIRGINITY. The state of bodily integrity in either sex. This integrity may be physical or moral, and either factual or intentional. Physical virginity is sometimes defined as the absence of any sinfully experienced lustful sensation. But, strictly speaking, a person is physically a virgin unless he or she has had sexual intercourse with a person of the opposite sex. Moral virginity means the absence of any willful consent to venereal pleasure; again, strictly speaking, with a person of the opposite sex. Virginity is factual when, de facto, a person has not in the past sought or indulged in sexual pleasure; it is intentional when a person intends never to experience such pleasure, according to the previous distinctions made. (Etym. Latin virgo, maiden, virgin.)
 
I’m looking for the official interpretation of this statement by St.Jerome 🙂 Or someones interpretation of it 🙂
 
Fredric_86 said:
I’m looking for the official interpretation of this statement by St.Jerome 🙂 Or someones interpretation of it 🙂
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Has the Church ever given official interpretations of statements by the Church Fathers?
 
Fredric_86 said:
I’m looking for the official interpretation of this statement by St.Jerome
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Good luck with that. Contrary to popular belief, the Church has not officially taught about a great many things. The writings of the ECFs are not actually Doctrine, so the Church has no official teachings about any of them, as far as I know (and I’m rather familiar with the ECFs, as many here know). The Church might occasionally cite an ECF in an official document, but that’s not the same as a direct interpretation.
 
This is what wikipedia says about the catholic rules on virginity loss. I think it comes from St.Jerome.

Catholic view

The Catholic Encyclopedia says: “There are two elements in virginity: the material element, that is to say, the absence, in the past and in the present, of all complete and voluntary delectation, whether from lust or from the lawful use of marriage; and the formal element, that is the firm resolution to abstain forever from sexual pleasure” and that “Virginity is irreparably lost by sexual pleasure, voluntarily and completely experienced.”[78] However, for the purposes of consecrated virgins it is canonically enough that they have never been married or lived in open violation of chastity.

Can anyone tell me what it means ?
 
Fredric_86 said:
Anyone ?
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Pretty simple;

Don’t touch it or let anyone else touch it! (violation/delectation)

Don’t ‘cheat’ either, by voluntarily ‘allowing’ orgasm (experience) - forgetting to ride side-saddle, deliberately, or mental stimuli…etc

Basic, really.

:cool:
 
Fredric_86 said:
Anyone ?
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Greetings in Christ, Fredric!

I wouldn’t worry about it because it’s a moot point for Jerome. For Jerome, “virginity may be lost even by a thought” because a “virgin is defined as she that is holy in body and in spirit, for it is no good to have virgin flesh if a woman be married in mind” (Letter 22, 5 & , 22On the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary). As he says elsewhere: “If it is good not to touch a woman, it is bad to touch one: for there is no opposite to goodness but badness” (, Bk. 1, 7Against Jovinian).

““If there’s anything good, anything that’s good in me, well, it must be You!”

With love in Christ,
Pete
 
Fredric_86 said:
St.Jerome wrote in his twenty-second Epistle to St. Eustochium that “Virginity is irreparably lost by sexual pleasure, voluntarily and completely experienced”.
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It should also be clarified that this is not a quote from Jerome, but the assertion of the author of that article of the Catholic Encyclopedia. Jerome is simply brought in as witness to the fact that virginity can’t be restored: “I will say it boldly, though God can do all things He cannot raise up a virgin when once she has fallen” (Letter 22, 5).

In Christ,
Pete
 
Pete Holter: To your first post, dated Jul 9th: If it’s such a moot point for Jerome, why is this saying on both the Wikipedia definition on virginity, and on New Advent’s virginity page.

And to your post dated yesterday: If it’s an assertion of the author of that article of the Catholic Encyclopedia, why does it say that St.Jerome wrote it? And if it’s not a quote from St.Jeromes twenty-second Epistle to St. Eustochium, why is the sentence marked with quotation marks?
 
Fredric_86 said:
Pete Holter: To your first post, dated Jul 9th: If it’s such a moot point for Jerome, why is this saying on both the Wikipedia definition on virginity, and on New Advent’s virginity page.

And to your post dated yesterday: If it’s an assertion of the author of that article of the Catholic Encyclopedia, why does it say that St.Jerome wrote it? And if it’s not a quote from St.Jeromes twenty-second Epistle to St. Eustochium, why is the sentence marked with quotation marks?
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Hi Fredric!

It is moot for Jerome because, as I noted above, he held that “it is bad to touch” a woman (, Bk. 1, 7Against Jovinian). He also held that “a mere glance will be reckoned to us for adultery” (, Bk. 1, 24Against Jovinian). “[C]hastity must be preserved at all costs,” and “all who have not preserved their virginity, in comparison of pure and angelic chastity and of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, are defiled” (, Bk. 1, 49 & 40Against Jovinian).

Wikipedia is simply quoting the Catholic Encyclopedia. Here is the text from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Virginity is irreparably lost by sexual pleasure, voluntarily and completely experienced. “I tell you without hesitation”, writes St. Jerome in his twenty-second Epistle to St. Eustochium, n. 5 (P.L., XXII, 397) “that though God is almighty, He cannot restore a virginity that has been lost.”

You accidentally placed the first sentence in quotation marks and assigned it to Jerome. But the citation from St. Jerome is only the material in quotation marks: “I tell you without hesitation, that though God is almighty, He cannot restore a virginity that has been lost.” This is just a different translation of the same sentence that I quoted from the 38 volume set of the Fathers: “I will say it boldly, though God can do all things He cannot raise up a virgin when once she has fallen” (Letter 22, 5).

With love in Christ,
Pete
 
As for the part that’s from the Catholic Encyclopedia, the definition is saying that a virgin who’s been raped is still a virgin in the eyes of God, as well as noting the normal definition of how to lose one’s virginity.

The Church has taught that rape doesn’t end virginity since the days of the Sack of Rome, when St. Augustine intervened to make sure nobody despised the victims of rape for not committing suicide like the famous pagan Roman virgins of legend. Likewise, it was to be known that widows and wives who were raped had not committed adultery or any sin against chastity, no matter what the pagans thought.
 
Mintaka says this is the normal definition of how to lose ones virginity. What should i think about that ?
 
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