For a reading response of ca.

250-300 words, discuss how Jerome views the role of the

human body in the life of a dedicated virgin like Eustochium. You may concentrate on one
bodily function or aspect of the body, or treat the topic more broadly.

Theres a very strong emphasis on corruption throughout the text. Jerome talks about
how God doesnt necessarily want emaciated followers, weak and sick, but that chastity
and virginity cannot be achieved or preserved without fasting and mortification. The
body is treated as a treacherous vessel; you cannot drink wine, because it will make you
more amenable to sin and you cannot eat too much, nor dress too fancily, nor go out of
the city because those are ways of falling into sin and losing your virginity. Theres a
mentality of being constantly at war with your body, and not in a purely physical way,
as in the concupiscence of the flesh, but also referring to intellectual pursuits. Enriching
yourself is not okay because it takes away from your time to God, as it is not an activity
directly related to pleasing him, which is the primary objective of a virgin, since shes
not married. And this is one of the few rules that also apply to males, as Jerome retells
his own story.
But, ironically, Jerome advises the virgins to shun the company of married women.
Virtue doesnt seem to be compatible with child rearing at all. Jerome says, and I quote
Why do you, Gods bride, hasten to visit the wife of a mere man? Learn in this respect
a holy pride; know that you are better than they (Jerome 111). I find that interesting,
because pride is one of the capital vices, and eventually Jerome will warn against
vainglory, a close relative. He also warns against exaggerating the fasting, the pain, on
making the mortification a show for glory, as it is false modesty wishing for recognition.
Wouldnt this shunning of married women be a sort of vainglory in those terms?
The idea of inherent contradiction between virgins and married women is interesting in
terms of the female body, because it clearly comes from another of Jeromes ideas, that
marriage and child rearing are inherently negative since its only after the fall that sex
and birth happen. The only thing that redeems it is the fact that it produces more virgins
for God. There we can see more emphasis in corruption, more denaturalization of the
female body. For Jerome the female body is both Gods temple and as such worthy of
the utmost respect, and a treacherous enemy that you must control and subjugate
through mortification and denaturalization.