BETWEEN a “harlot [meretrix]” and a “prostitute [prostibula],” says Nonius, this is the difference: that a meretrix is of a more honest place and gain [quaestus]. For meretrices are [so] called from “earning [merendo],” because they would make [give] the abundance of themselves only by night; [and] prostibula, because [one] stands before the stable [stabulum], for the sake of day-and-night gain; and, from Plautus in the Cistellaria, he calls [her] “a good harlot [bonam meretricem],” as if not all [are] bad. But as, rightly, in Athenaeus bk. 13 Menander said, [it is] only of the Latin name [that there is such] a distinction — which, however, among [the] authors is not often preserved; and if it were preserved, [it] sufficiently appears from [what has been] said [that] not a “prostitute,” but a “harlot,” was Rahab. Three other [things], therefore, are asked:
1. Whether [she was] both a harlot and a caupona-woman (cauponatrix) — or, as today we speak, a hostess (hospita) — at once?
Radak asserts [it], [and] Arias, and quaest. 14 Abulensis. Cajetan, even if about the harlotry he concedes [it] can be doubted, yet seems to opine [that] she was a caupona. The arguments can be: 1. because into her house, as if [into] a lodging-tavern, the spies entered, and she, as a tavern-woman [tabernaria mulier], received them. 2. In the 70, [they entered] into “this her house,” but [it] is a κατάλυμα [katalyma, “lodging”] — a lodging [diversorium]. 3. [Women] who keep taverns [cauponantur] are wont at the same time also to play the harlot, as Radak and Arias say; and altogether that καπηλεία [kapēleia, “tavern-keeping”] declares [it] to be of ill fame, in Auitus [?], Pseudo-Antoninus, Dio, [and] Philostratus On Nero bk. 4; and from these, Faber bk. 3 ch. 27. I omit [what], from the Chaldee [Aramaic], above quest. 4, [was] expounded [about] the name. I judge [her to have been] a harlot only. 1. because not everyone who receives another in hospitality is at once an innkeeper [caupo]; and above [it was] said [that] Rahab furnished these [spies] hospitality rather out of [private] hospitality than out of [the] office and function [of an innkeeper]. 2. because this opinion was born from that Rabbinic exposition which above, quest. 4, I showed [to be] futile. 3. all the more ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins indicate [her to be] a harlot only. 4. because in those ancient times [there] were not [such things] as today among us [are] taverns [cauponae], as [in] Tobit ch. 5, quaest. 3, I taught. Even if there had been a caupona of this kind, [there] could not have been in it so great a liberty of conversing with the spies, [and] so easy a manner of hiding them; for in such places [there are] always some [people]. But to those [things] which are objected: to the first I have already responded — [that] Rahab received them as a [private] hospitable [host], not as some modern [hodiernal] hostess. To the second: a κατάλυμα can be called every place in which one makes the end of walking [stops], and in which one rests and takes recreation; and so also a place where some banquet [epulum] is taken — although [it be] placed outside a tavern, and [be] not profane but sacred — is called κατάλυμα, 1 Kings [1 Sam.] 9:22 and Mark 14:14, where our [Vulgate] now
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—renders [it] “triclinium [dining-room],” now “refectio [refreshment-room]”; and that indeed not barbarously, as Beza objects, but in that manner in which also the place of refection in Latin is called “cenatio [dining-room].” To the third: In some regions perhaps the same [women] [are] both whores and hostesses; nay, even among these [hostesses there are] sometimes other whores, as St. Ephrem shows tome 3, in the oration on St. Abrahamius. But how great an injury would France and Germany think this — where [there are] grave and honest innkeepers and inn-women? Far be it [that] these two [caupona and harlot] be necessarily joined, or [that they] were always and everywhere joined.
2. Was Rahab a common [public] harlot?
Abulensis denies [it], [in] the cited place: “It is to be considered,” he says, “that she was not publicly prostituted, but only was a fornicatress [fornicaria], because she commingled herself with some [certain men] — just as [it] is said of Magdalene, Luke 7, [that] she was a sinful woman, and this in fornication. Yet no one says of her [Rahab] that she was prostituted venally, or for the satiating of everyone’s lust, but [that] she basely handed herself over to some lovers. For [it] was not likely [that] a woman of so great a kind [family], and so rich, would expose herself [as] publicly venal.” But indeed, truly, from those [things] by which before they proved Rahab [to be] a harlot, very many also prove [that she was] a common [vulgaris] [harlot], and [that she] was public. For, first, this infamous name “harlot” brings this with itself, unless from elsewhere [it] appear [that it is] to be restricted. Secondly. If [she] had had only certain men, whose loves she indulged, these certainly would have been known in that city; and thus [there] would not have been for the foreign [spies] so commodious an occasion of hiding with her. Thirdly. Separated from [her] father’s house, she had her own affairs [means], without any husband. But if she had wished to admit to herself only certain [men], she could have [done so] even at [her] parents’. Fourthly. The ancients so speak of her lasciviousness, that they esteem [that] she abstained from the lust of no one. Fifthly, to this [conclusion] will also contribute those [things] which [in] the following quest. will be touched — especially while, about her kind and wealth (which pricked [troubled] Abulensis), the scruple [difficulty] will be removed. For [was] not Megaris Nicarete, [and] Argiua Bilistiche, [any] more clear [famous] by [their] noble birth than [those] in Athenaeus bk. 13? But of Magdalene, Luke 7 treats, [and] Maldonatus, and tome 1 Baronius.
3. Was Rahab a harlot dedicated to impure idols?
[It] is to be understood [that], among the Gentiles, amid the rest of the densest blindness of errors, and impurity of life, [there] was this [one] not the least: [namely] that, in honor of the Gods and Goddesses of unspeakable [things], certain little-women would make themselves common, and be called “sacred harlots [sacrae meretrices].” For thus, bk. 12, Strabo [says] about Comana, a city of Pontus: “Those who inhabit it are of copious and delicate [luxurious] living; and all their estates are planted with vines, and [there is] a great multitude of women there, who make gain by [their] body, ὧν αἱ πλείους εἰσὶν ἱεραί [hōn hai pleious eisin hierai — reading approximate], that is, of whom very many are sacred.” For with that worship they worshipped their Goddess, namely Luna [the moon]. And thus in the other Comana of Cappadocia. And a little after: “Of Corinth [there] was a multitude of harlots, αἵ τε Ἀφροδίτης ἦσαν ἱεραί [hai te Aphroditēs ēsan hierai], that is, [those] who were sacred to Venus” — and these, bk. 8, he calls ἱεροδούλους [hierodoulous, “temple-slaves”], and says [there] were more than a thousand [of them]; about whom [there are] many [things] bk. 13, Athenaeus — of which three [are] these. First. [That there] was an old law of Corinth, that when the city supplicated Venus about great matters — for example, in Xerxes’ advent [invasion] — [that] into the pomp [procession] of the supplications many harlots be summoned, who should pray the Goddess, and, after the departure of the others, should remain in the temples. Secondly. [That] the Corinthians were wont to vow certain harlots to that goddess of theirs; and thus, after [someone] had been victor in the Olympic contest, Xenophon [vowed]—
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—the Corinthian, and 25 girls, [that he] led [them to Aphrodite], as in Pindar it is. Thirdly. From whores of this kind [there] are celebrated there yearly the Aphrodisia [festival of Aphrodite]. Similar [things] Herodotus bk. 1 near the end, Justinus bk. 21, [and] Dio Chrysostom in his Corinthiaca. And Deut. 23, where Greekly in the 70 [it] is ἐκ ἴσαι τελεσφόρος ἀπὸ θυγατέρων Ἰσραήλ [ek isai telesphoros apo thygaterōn Israēl — reading approximate: “there shall not be a consecrated [woman] of the daughters of Israel”] — what [is signified], unless [women] initiated by the presidents of salacity? And therefore Theodoret says τελεσιομένας [telesiomenas], “those [women] taught the mysteries of the same demons [ταὐτῶν δαιμόνων μυστήρια διδασκομένους].” And what again is noted, when the wage of a harlot is forbidden to be offered [in the temple]? Is it not because the sacred harlots offered [it] to their Gods from that impure and sordid gain? To me, therefore, our Rahab seems to have been of the number of these sacred [harlots]. For 1. Jericho, from the worship of Luna [the moon], can not undeservedly be seen [to be] named [after the moon]. For great was, among the Gentiles, the religion — or rather superstition — of this [moon], as from Strabo everywhere is established (for example, bk. 17, once and again), and in our Jeremiah ch. 7 v. 18 and ch. 44 v. 19, where — just as in Horace’s Secular Song she is called “Queen of heaven [Regina caeli]” (not, as Beza ignorantly says on B[lessed] Luke 1:32, [that it means] the Sun) — and impiously this name is transferred by the Christians to the B[lessed] Virgin, “with no less blasphemy.” But [that] Luna [had] harlots dedicated [to her], a little before Strabo narrated. 2. The amenity of the place, and the affluence of all things, excited here among the Canaanites — as also at Comana, Corinth, Alexandria, elsewhere — whorings and all disgraces. 3. On this account the city seems to have been given, afterward, into anathema and perpetual destruction. 4. The King’s ministers do not enter her house, but say to her v. 3: “Bring forth the men who came to thee, and entered thy house” — as if, namely, they themselves would not [dare to] burst into [her] house, and would not dare to violate it. For how otherwise would the King’s satellites, armed by royal mandate, in a matter so sudden and of so great weight, not have rushed in on the spot, and searched out all [things]? And even if they would not rush in, yet they [still] give a reason for their deed: “For they are spies, and came to consider the whole land.” 5. When the same [ministers], either by acclaiming, or through the little maid who had been sent to those [spies] now knocking, announcing that [the King ordered] her to bring them forth, would have signified [it] in the King’s name — how [is it that] they conceded so much of delay to her, that they let [her] make the spies go up [to the roof] and cover them with flax-stalks? 6. And, [as to] what she pleased to say, those officers believed [it] at once, as if [she were] of great faith and authority among them. 7. To this perhaps also pertains the “scarlet [coccineus]” (of which below), the “cord,” and the “flax study [zeal].” For harlots, Eubulus (in Athenaeus) narrates, used [wore] most translucent cloths: “with little tunics,” he says, “of transparent woven thread, as if covered with little membranes.” Yet [that] nothing can be firmly enough concluded from these [7 points], I sufficiently understand. But GOD’s grace shines the more brightly in the more abundant vessel of turpitude and superstition. And thus [it] is understood how [she], who could be of good kind and ample means, might [nonetheless] be esteemed [as] of miserable and blind mind [while an idolatress]. See also our Villalpandus on Ezech. 43 ch. 79 [?], Martinus de Roa bk. 2 Singularia ch. 9, 10, bk. 3 ch. 9 and following.