Part 1 is the offensive remark.

Right, this is what the conversation started with, and the offensive remark is in what he reports others have said. As you yourself reproduce, “I know that some have given instructions . . .”

Please remember I specifically said I was not giving a general defense of Jerome’s attitudes on women and sexuality.

Part 2, I would say, is also offensive. The virgin of full age should be unable to look upon her own nakedness.
Shame? Why? Shame even when bathing? Why?

Perhaps it is offensive. I have not committed myself to defending it. I have only insisted that he does not attribute the shame he says she should feel to the repulsiveness of her body. Exactly the opposite: it is the “natural beauty” of her body that he thinks should motivate her shame.

Part 3 – bathing is embracing filth?
No. You seem to be missing the contrast of his rhetoric. He is asking why the virgin would besmirch herself with dirt (to hide her natural beauty as a means to chastity) and still rush to the baths (which are, you know, places to remove dirt).

Where should she bathe, then?
He seems to think she shouldn’t bathe, as part of her asceticism. It isn’t clear to me whether he means she should not clean herself at all, by any means, or whether he is more thinking of the public baths common in the Roman world. I think it is at least safe to say that there is a strong connection in his mind between bathing–pampering the body and making the body more enticing–and sex.

Baths are places that have smothering flames of sexual heat?
I’m not sure about “smothering” flames, but yes he links the baths to heat. Again this is rhetorical. Bathes were literally hot–think of saunas or jacuzzis–, but heat is also a metaphor for the fire of sexual desire.

If she fasts to keep herself from getting overweight, that is defiling? ? ?
Where did body weight enter into the discussion? He is referring to consecrated virgins mortifying their bodies to tame their desires. One method of doing that was fasting. And no, I don’t see where he says anything to the effect of fasting being defiling. He does think of fasting as bringing the body into submission.

If she has the vigil of being sure to bathe, that is defiling?
Who said anything about a “vigil of being sure to bathe”? Jerome is obviously talking about staying up late (presumably in prayer) as an act of mortification, and taming the body (that wants to sleep).

Clean and not overweight is defiling and filthy?
Again, I just don’t know what you are referring to. Jerome seems to take for granted that consecrated virgins will embrace being dirty, and he seems to approve of this. I don’t seem him addressing body weight at all. We may or may not approve of his sensibilities, but it isn’t that shocking if we place him in the ascetic tradition and in the historical context of Roman luxury and how it was practiced.

I’ve been somewhat fascinated by the passage from Ep 107.11, and found myself compelled to do some research. I think translating ‘foeditatem’ as “deformity” is distracting and obscures the point.

“tumor uteris”, and cognate expressions, is not very common, but everywhere else in Jerome (that I can find some such variation), it is used as a sign of sexual sin. He does not use it as a generic and morally neutral term for “pregnant” or “expecting” or “with child”.

We already encountered it in Ep 11, where he was speaking to sexually active “virgins” who carry on unabashed unless betrayed by their swelling bellies.

It also is used in his translation of Gen 38:24, where Tamar is suspected of playing the harlot, where her swollen belly is plainly taken as a sign of her harlotry.

Most strikingly we find it in his translation of Numbers 5 (see vv. 21-22), where it is repeated twice. The chapter is proscribing a test for cases where a husband suspects his wife of infidelity (though the suspicion cannot be proven). The wife is to drink waters cursed by the priest, and the curse that the priest has cast on the waters is that if she is guilty of adultery, “may he make thy thigh to rot, and may thy belly swell and burst asunder.”

The passage is quite interesting on a few levels. Perhaps most interesting is that swelling of the belly is a sign of sexual sin, but it isn’t obvious that it refers to pregnancy at all; it seem to be speaking of some rather more alarming medical condition.

Another particularly telling occurrence is in his “De Virginitate Beatae Mariae” or “Contra Helvidius”, in which he speaks of Joseph observing with alarm Mary’s growing belly.

On the one hand, again, the swelling belly is clearly taken here a sign of sexual impropriety. On the other, it is hardly conceivable that Jerome would speak of the Blessed virgin with inherently offensive language. Her growing belly alarms Joseph, serving for him as a sign his betrothed has secretly been unfaithful.

In sum, “swollen belly,” in Jerome’s usage, does not express disgust or revulsion. But it is consistently used when speaking of the visible, undisguisable sign (either natural or miraculous) of some shameful, hidden, sexual activity.

What then of foeditam? It is tempting here to take foeditatem, in a physical sense, to refer to “deformity” or some other unsightliness, because of the verb, ‘praefere’, which can mean to “show” or “exhibit”. But on more careful inspection, I think the sense here is actually tropological. The tropological sense is less common in the derived, abstract noun, but the root adjective, foedus, has a well attested meaning when applied to mentalities: “disgraceful, vile, obscene, base, horrible, dreadful, dishonorable, shameful, infamous, foul” and this moral sense is not altogether unattested in reputable authors also in the abstract noun (cf., Cic. de Off. 3.105, “si in deformitate corporis habet aliquid offensionis, quanta illa depravatio et foeditas turpificati animi debet videri”).

So I think what is going in the line is this: pregnant women put an unmentionable-in-polite-company baseness on plain display in their swollen bellies.

The sense then would be that a consecrated virgin should not bathe with married women, because those that are pregnant will provide, in their bellies, a very physical reminder that they have let themselves be f*ked (and the accompanying image isn’t something a consecrated virgin should want to have brought to mind).

So I really don’t think this has to do with physical repulsiveness of a pregnant woman, but with her visible pregnancy as a constant and unavoidable reminder of the unmentionable-in-delicate-company things that she has done, things which a consecrated virgin should make an effort not to think about. Taken thus, an otherwise puzzling line makes perfect sense. The consecrated virgin should avoid visceral reminders of the sexual activity of others.

Of course, as I already pointed out, this is not Jerome giving his own opinion. Perhaps he views this position sympathetically, perhaps not. However we take it, the sentiment can’t be directly laid at his feet.

any suggestions on what the title should be for the new thread?

I tried to think of something clever, but failed. I don’t really have strong opinions. Something straightforward like, “Jerome’s attitude toward pregnant women” seems adequate to me.

It’s more work, but I can copy (rather than move)
Sorry to cause trouble. I didn’t realize moving posts was tedious; I wonder if it might be less work in that case to rename this thread, then move Steefen’s videos about Celsus to a new thread, named to match the title he originally chose.

(I’m also happy to leave it all here and start a new discussion to continue, but that wouldn’t satisfy Steefen’s request for posts not related to Celsus and Origen to be moved.)

Is there any evidence those are authentic letters of St. Jerome? He must’ve had terrible tendinitis from writing so much.