Besides, if in order rightly to understand the meaning of St. Paul, we consult the holy Fathers and Interpreters (which certainly is a very good method of investigating the truth), we shall scarcely find one who thought that St. Paul either beat or lashed himself, and in the above passage meant to speak of any such thing as voluntary Flagellation. St. Iræneus, Bishop of Lyons, though he has translated the words in question into these, “_I chastise my own body, and render it livid_,” has made no mention whatever of either scourges, whips, or rods.--St. Chrysostom likewise supposes, that the Apostle in the above passage, only spoke of the pains and care he took, in order to preserve his temperance, and conquer the passions of the flesh; and that it was the same as if he had said, “I submit to much labour, in order to live according to the rules of Temperance. I undergo every kind of hardship, rather than suffer myself to be led astray.” It must be confessed, however, that Benedictus Haeftenus, in his _Disquisitiones Monasticæ_, quotes a passage from the above Author’s 34th Homily, by which he pretends to prove that self-flagellations were in use in that Father’s time; but the words which Haeftenus has quoted in Latin are not to be found in the original Greek of St. Chrysostom’s Homilies, and are therefore to be attributed to some modern Flogging-Master (Μαστιγοφόρος) who has lent them to him, by a kind of pious fraud. Other passages to prove our assertion, might be quoted from the words of Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, of Oecumenius, as well as several other Greek Fathers. The Latin have also understood St. Paul’s words in the same sense that the Greek Fathers have done. Indeed I do not find one among them but who thought that St. Paul did not actually lash himself with his own hands. St. Ambrosius, Bishop of Milan, expresses himself on the subject in the following words. ‘He who says (meaning St. Paul) I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, does not so much _grieve_ (_contristatur_) for his own sins, which after all could not be so very numerous, as for ours.’ St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, and an illustrious Discipline of St. Augustin, on this occasion treads in the footsteps of his excellent Master, giving the same sense as him to the words of St. Paul. The following is the manner in which St. Fulgentius explains those words, in his Epistle _on Virginity_, addressed to _Proba_. “The spiritual Spouse of Virgins does not seek in a Virgin a body practised in carnal pleasures; but rather wishes she should have chastised it by abstinence. This, the Doctor of the Gentiles used to practice on his own body. _I chastise_ (says he) _my body, and keep it under subjection._ And again, _in watchings often, in thirst and hunger, in fastings often_: let therefore the Virgin of Christ forbear to seek after pleasures which, she sees, are equally with-held from the widow.”