Athanasius of Alexandria : What then has persuaded you to contradict each other and to procure to yourselves so great a disgrace? You cannot give any good account of it; this supposition only remains, that all you do is but outward profession and pretense.… And you make nothing of accusing the Fathers, and you complain outright of the expressions as being unscriptural; and, as it is written, "opened your legs to every one that passed by;" so as to change as often as they wish, in whose pay and keep you are. Yet, though a person uses terms not in Scripture, it makes no difference, so that his meaning is religious. But the heretic, though he uses scriptural terms, because he is equally dangerous and depraved, will be asked in the words of the Spirit, "Why do you preach my laws and take my covenant in your mouth?" — ON SYNODS 39 Jerome : She will sit by the waters of loneliness, her pitcher laid aside, and open her legs to every one who passes by and be polluted to the crown of her head. It would have been better for her to have submitted to the yoke of marriage, to have walked in level places, than to aspire to loftier heights and fall into the depths of hell. — LETTER 22.6 Jerome : A noble alternative only to be embraced in preference to Satan! In the old days even Jerusalem went whoring and opened her legs to everyone that passed by. It was in Egypt that she was first deflowered and there that her teats were bruised. — LETTER 79.10 Jerome : Our Zion, in which at times there are Philistines and Tyre and Ethiopia; that watchtower, that meretrix, that harlot, that Rahab, that Babylon, that one who, according to Ezekiel, has prostituted herself to everyone on the crossroads; that meretrix, if she wills it, suddenly becomes a virgin. A virgin she becomes, conceives the Son of God and brings him forth. "From your fear, O Lord, we conceived and suffered the pangs of childbirth, bringing forth the spirit of your salvation on the earth." Understand, therefore, that [Jerusalem], who was a prostitute, conceives of God and is in labor and brings forth the Savior. — HOMILIES ON THE Psalms 18 (Psalms 86) Origen of Alexandria : Possessing these things, she is of great beauty, but she is corrupted by the divisions of heretics and foreign religious systems. — HOMILIES ON Ezekiel 7:7