Caesarius of Arles : Although you might marry and in the face of the authority of all the Scriptures never commit adultery, why do you not with God's grace accept what is lawful? Instead you dare to offend God and commit what is unlawful. I would like to know whether those who have no wives, and neither fear nor blush to commit adultery before they are joined in wedlock, would want their spouses to be violated by adulterers before they come to marriage. Since there is no one who would patiently accept this, why does not each one observe toward his spouse the fidelity he wants observed by her? Why does one desire to take a virgin as his wife, when he himself is corrupted? Why does he wish to be united to a wife who is alive, when he is dead in soul because of adultery, according to what is written: "The soul that sins shall die"? Moreover, the apostle exclaims in terrible words, "God will judge the immoral and adulterers," and "Adulterers will not possess the kingdom of God." Furthermore, "They are all adulterers, their hearts like an oven." — SERMON 43 Jerome : "All adulterers are like an oven heated by the baker: the city rested for a little while from the mixture of the ferment, until it had fermented all. " LXX: "All adulterers are like a burning oven for baking bread, heated by the fire of mixed bread, until it has fermented all." Those who rejoice in their wickedness, kings in their lies, are all adulterers, and like a burning oven, consumed by the fire of Jeroboam's idolatry, to bake bread of impiety which, when it sent an error into their souls, like an oven and kiln first set on fire, rested for a little while, so as not to overpower the people, but to let them follow their own will until all lies had fermented: for whatever is done out of necessity, is quickly dissolved: what is willingly taken up, endures. Therefore even here, because he had taken the translation from the shovel, which is used to bake bread, he preserves in the rest, so that in the mixing of the whole people, he shows their consent: namely, that both king and people are consumed by equal ardor in idolatry. No one doubts that the hearts of the heretics are set ablaze by the fire of the devil, so that the loaves of Antichrist can be baked in them: who therefore first remain silent in the Church, and speak secretly, and promise all peace, so that cancer gradually creeps into peoples, and their teaching leaven (which the Lord also understands when he says: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees" (Matth. XVI, 6) when it swells in the hearts of the deceived, then they break out into open madness, and what is said by John the Apostle is fulfilled in them: "They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us" (I John I, 19). — Commentary on Hosea 7:4 Origen of Alexandria : But where shall I find an approach to the divine Scripture that teaches me what "an oven" is? I must call upon Jesus my Lord, that he may make me the seeker find and may open to the one knocking, that I may find in Scriptures "the oven" where I can rightly bake my sacrifice that God may accept it. Indeed, I think I have found it in Hosea the prophet, where he says, "All adulterers are as an oven ignited for burning." And again he says, "Their hearts glowed as an oven." The human heart therefore is "an oven." But this heart, if vices ignite it or the devil inflames it, will not bake, but it will burn up. But if that one who said, "I came to send fire into the earth" should ignite it, the loaves of the divine Scriptures and of the words of God which I receive in my heart, I do not burn up for destruction, but I bake for sacrifice. — HOMILIES ON Leviticus 5:2