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ON MODESTY.[1]
[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. THELWALL.]
MODESTY, the flower of manners, the honour of our bodies, the
grace of the sexes, the integrity of the blood, the guarantee of our
race, the basis of sanctity, the pre-indication of every. good
disposition; rare though it is, and not easily perfected, and scarce
ever retained in perpetuity, will yet up to a certain point linger in
the world, if nature shall have laid the preliminary groundwork of it,
discipline persuaded to it, censorial rigour curbed its excesses—on
the hypothesis, that is, that every mental good quality is the result
either of birth, or else of training, or else of external compulsion.
But as the conquering power of things evil is on the
increase—which is the characteristic of the last times[2]—things good
are now not allowed either to be born, so corrupted are the seminal
principles; or to be trained, so deserted are studies; nor to be
enforced, so dined are the laws. In fact, (the modesty) of which we are
now beginning (to treat) is by this time grown so obsolete, that it is
not the abjuration but the moderation of the 'appetites which modesty
is believed to be; and he is held to be chaste enough who has not been
too chaste. But let the world's[3] modesty see to itself, together with
the world[4] itself: together with its inherent nature, if it was wont
to originate in birth; its study, if in training; its servitude, if in
compulsion: except that it had been even more unhappy if it had
remained only to prove fruitless, in that it had not been in God's
household that its activities had been exercised. I should prefer no
good to a vain good: what profits it that that should exist whose
existence profits not? It is our own good things whose position is now
sinking; it is the system of Christian modesty which is being shaken to
its foundation—(Christian modesty), which derives its all from heaven;
its nature, "through the layer of regeneration;"[5] its discipline,
through the instrumentality of preaching; its censorial rigour, through
the judgments which each Testament exhibits; and is subject to a more
constant external compulsion, arising from the apprehension or the
desire of the eternal fire or kingdom.[6]
In opposition to this (modesty), could I not have acted the
dissembler? I hear that there has even been an edict set forth, and a
peremptory one too. The Pontifex Maximus[7]—that is, the bishop of
bishops[8]—issues an edict: "I remit, to such as have discharged (the
requirements of) repentance, the sins both of adultery and of
fornication." O edict, on which cannot be inscribed, "Good deed!" And
where shall this liberality be posted up? On the very spot, I suppose,
on the very gates of the sensual appetites, beneath the very titles of
the sensual appetites. There is the place for promulgating such
repentance, where the delinquency itself shall haunt. There is the
place to read the pardon, where entrance shall be made under the hope
thereof. But it is in the church that this (edict) is read, and in the
church that it is pronounced; and (the church) is a virgin! Far, far
from Christ's betrothed be such a proclamation! She, the true, the
modest, the saintly, shall be free from stain even of her ears. She has
none to whom to make such a promise; and if she have had, she does not
make it; since even the earthly temple of God can sooner have been
called by the Lord a "den of robbers,"[1] than of adulterers and
fornicators.
This too, therefore, shall be a count in my indictment against
the Psychics; against the fellowship of sentiment also which I myself
formerly maintained with them; in order that they may the more cast
this in my teeth for a mark of fickleness. Repudiation of fellowship is
never a pre-indication of sin. As if it were not easier to err with the
majority, when it is in the company of the few that truth is loved But,
however, a profitable fickleness shall no more be a disgrace to me,
than I should wish a hurtful one to be an ornament. I blush not at an
error which I have ceased to hold, because I am delighted at having
ceased to hold it, because I recognise myself to be better and more
modest. No one blushes at his own improvement. Even in Christ,
knowledge had its stages of growth;[2] through which stages the
apostle, too, passed. "When I was a child," he says, "as a child I
spake, as a child I understood; but when I became a man, those (things)
which had been the child's I abandoned:"[3] so truly did he turn away
from his early opinions: nor did he sin by becoming an emulator not of
ancestral but of Christian traditions,[4] wishing even the prae-cision
of them who advised the retention of circumcision.[5] And would that
the same fate might befall those, too, who obtruncate the pure and true
integrity of the flesh; amputating not the extremest superficies, but
the inmost image of modesty itself, while they promise pardon to
adulterers and fornicators, in the teeth of the primary discipline of
the Christian Name; a discipline to which heathendom itself bears such
emphatic witness, that it strives to punish that discipline in the
persons of Our females rather by defilements of the flesh than
tortures; wishing to wrest from them that which they hold dearer than
life! But now this glory is being extinguished, and that by means of
those who ought with all the more constancy to refuse concession of any
pardon to defilements of this kind, that they make the fear of
succumbing to adultery and fornication their reason for marrying as
often as they please—since "better it is to marry than to burn."[6] No
doubt it is for continence sake that incontinence is necessary—the
"burning" will be extinguished by "fires!" Why, then, do they withal
grant indulgence, under the name of repentance, to crimes for which
they furnish remedies by their law of multinuptialism? For remedies
will be idle while crimes are indulged, and crimes will remain if
remedies are idle. And so, either way, they trifle with solicitude and
negligence; by taking emptiest precaution against (crimes) to which
they grant quarter, and granting absurdest quarter to (crimes) against
which they take precaution: whereas either precaution is not to be
taken where quarter is given, or quarter not given where precaution is
taken; for they take precaution, as if they were unwilling that
something should be committed; but grant indulgence, as if they were
willing it should be committed: whereas, if they be unwilling it should
be committed, they ought not to grant indulgence; if they be willing to
grant indulgence, they ought not to take precaution. For, again,
adultery and fornication will not be ranked at the same time among the
moderate and among the greatest sins, so that each course may be
equally open with regard to them—the solicitude which takes
precaution, and the security which grants indulgence. But since they
are such as to hold the culminating place among crimes, there is no
room at once for their indulgence as if they were moderate, and for
their precaution as if they were greatest But by us precaution is thus
also taken against the greatest, or, (if you will), highest (crimes,
viz.,) in that it is not permitted, after believing, to know even a
second marriage, differentiated though it be, to be sure, from the work
of adultery and fornication by the nuptial and dotal tablets: and
accordingly, with the utmost strictness, we excommunicate digamists, as
bringing infamy upon the Paraclete by the irregularity of their
discipline. The self-same liminal limit we fix for adulterers also and
fornicators; dooming them to pour forth tears barren of peace, and to
regain from the Church no ampler return than the publication of their
disgrace.
"But," say they, "God is 'good,' and 'most good,'[7] and
'pitiful-hearted,' and 'a pitier,' and 'abundant in
pitiful-heartedness,'[8] which He holds 'dearer than all sacrifice,'[9]
'not thinking the sinner's death of so much worth as his
repentance,[10] 'a Saviour of all men, most of all of believers.'[11]
And so it will be becoming for 'the sons of God'[12] too to be
'pitiful-hearted'[13] and 'peacemakers;'[14] 'giving in their turn just
as Christ withal hath given to us;'[1] 'not judging, that we be not
judged.'[2] For 'to his own lord a man standeth or falleth; who art
thou, to judge another's servant?'[3] 'Remit, and remission shall be
made to thee.'"[4] Such and so great futilities of theirs wherewith
they flatter God and pander to themselves, effeminating rather than
invigorating discipline, with how cogent and contrary (arguments) are
we for our part able to rebut,—(arguments) which set before us
warningly the "severity"[5] of God, and provoke our own constancy?
Because, albeit God is by nature good, still He is "just"[6] too. For,
from the nature of the case, just as He knows how to "heal," so does He
withal know how to "smite;"[7] "making peace," but withal "creating
evils;"[8] preferring repentance, but withal commanding Jeremiah not to
pray for the aversion of ills on behalf of the sinful People,—"since,
if they shall have fasted," saith He, "I will not listen to their
entreaty."[9] And again: "And pray not thou unto (me) on behalf of the
People, and request not on their behalf in prayer and supplication,
since I will not listen to (them) in the time wherein they shall have
invoked me, in the time of their affliction."[10] And further, above,
the same preferrer of mercy above sacrifice (says): "And pray not thou
unto (me) on behalf of this People, and request not that they may
obtain mercy, and approach not on their behalf unto me, since I will
not listen to (them)"[11] of course when they sue for mercy, when out
of repentance they weep and fast, and when they offer their
self-affliction to God. For God is "jealous,"[12] and is One who is not
contemptuously derided[13]—derided, namely, by such as flatter His
goodness—and who, albeit "patient,"[14] yet threatens, through Isaiah,
an end of (His) patience. "I have held my peace; shall I withal always
hold my peace and endure? I have been quiet as (a woman) in
birth-throes; I will arise, and will make (them) to grow arid."[15] For
"a fire shall proceed before His face, and shall utterly burn His
enemies;"[16] striking down not the body only, but the souls too, into
hell.[17] Besides, the Lord Himself demonstrates the manner in which He
threatens such as judge: "For with what judgment ye judge, judgment
shall be given on you."[18] Thus He has not prohibited judging, but
taught (how to do it). Whence the apostle withal judges, and that in a
case of fornication,[19] that "such a man must be surrendered to Satan
for the destruction of the flesh;"[20] chiding them likewise because
"brethren" were not "judged at the bar of the saints:"[21] for he goes
on and says, "To what (purpose is it) for me to judge those who are
without?" "But you remit, in order that remission may be granted you by
God." The sins which are (thus) cleansed are such as a man may have
committed against his brother, not against God. We profess, in short,
in our prayer, that we will grant remission to our debtors;[22] but it
is not becoming to distend further, on the ground of the authority of
such Scriptures, the cable of contention with alternate pull into
diverse directions; so that one (Scripture) may seem to draw tight,
another to relax, the reins of discipline—in uncertainty, as it
were,—and the latter to debase the remedial aid of repentance through
lenity, the former to refuse it through austerity. Further: the
authority of Scripture will stand within its own limits, without
reciprocal opposition. The remedial aid of repentance is determined by
its own conditions, without unlimited concession; and the causes of it
themselves are anteriorly distinguished without confusion in the
proposition. We agree that the causes of repentance are sins. These we
divide into two issues: some will be remissible, some irremissible: in
accordance wherewith it will be doubtful to no one that some deserve
chastisement, some condemnation. Every sin is dischargeable either by
pardon or else by penalty: by pardon as the result of chastisement, by
penalty as the result of condemnation. Touching this difference, we
have not only already premised certain antithetical passages of the
Scriptures, on one hand retaining, on the other remitting, sins;[23]
but John, too, will teach us: "If any knoweth his brother to be sinning
a sin not unto death, he shall request, and life shall be given to him
;" because he is not "sinning unto death," this will be remissible.
"(There) is a sin unto death; not for this do I say that any is to
request"[24]—this will be irremissible. So, where there is the
efficacious power of "making request," there likewise is that of
remission: where there is no (efficacious power) of "making request,"
there equally is none of remission either. According to this difference
of sins, the condition of repentance also is discriminated. There will
be a condition which may possibly obtain pardon,—in the case, namely,
of a remissible sin: there will be a condition which can by no means
obtain it,—in the case, namely, of an irremissible sin. And it remains
to examine specially, with regard to the position of adultery and
fornication, to which class of sins they ought to be assigned.
But before doing this, I will make short work with an answer
which meets us from the opposite side, in reference to that species of
repentance which we are just defining as being without pardon. "Why,
if," say they, "there is a repentance which lacks pardon, it
immediately follows that such repentance must withal be wholly
unpractised by you. For nothing is to be done in vain. Now repentance
will be practised in vain, if it is without pardon. But all repentance
is to be practised. Therefore let (us allow that) all obtains pardon,
that it may not be practised in vain; because it will not be to be
practised, if it be practised in vain. Now, in vain it is practised, if
it shall lack pardon." Justly, then, do they allege (this argument)
against us; since they have usurpingly kept in their own power the
fruit of this as of other repentance—that is, pardon; for, so far as
they are concerned, at whose hands (repentance) obtains man's peace,
(it is in vain). As regards us, however, who remember that the Lord
alone concedes (the pardon of) sins, (and of course of mortal ones,) it
will not be practised in vain. For (the repentance) being referred back
to the Lord, and thenceforward lying prostrate before Him, will by this
very fact the rather avail to win pardon, that it gains it by entreaty
from God alone, that it believes not that man's peace is adequate to
its guilt, that as far as regards the Church it prefers the blush of
shame to the privilege of communion. For before her doors it stands,
and by the example of its own stigma admonishes all others, and calls
at the same time to its own aid the brethren's tears, and returns with
an even richer merchandise—their compassion, namely—than their
communion. And if it reaps not the harvest of peace here, yet it sows
the seed of it with the Lord; nor does it lose, but prepares, its
fruit. It will not fail of emolument if it do not fail in duty. Thus,
neither is such repentance vain, nor such discipline harsh. Both honour
God. The former, by laying no flattering unction to itself, will more
readily win success; the latter, by assuming nothing to itself, will
more fully aid.
Having defined the distinction (between the kinds) of repentance,
we are by this time, then, able to return to the assessment of the
sins—whether they be such as can obtain pardon at the hand of men. In
the first place, (as for the fact) that we call adultery likewise
fornication, usage requires (us so to do). "Faith," withal, has a
familiar acquaintance with sundry appellations. So, in every one of our
little works, we carefully guard usage. Besides, if I shall say
"adulterium," and if "stuprum," the indictment of contamination of the
flesh will be one and the same. For it makes no difference whether a
man assault another's bride or widow, provided it be not his own
"female;" just as there is no difference made by places—whether it be
in chambers or in towers that modesty is massacred. Every homicide,
even outside a wood, is banditry. So, too, whoever enjoys any other
than nuptial intercourse, in whatever place, and in the person of
whatever woman, makes himself guilty of adultery and fornication.
Accordingly, among us, secret connections as well—connections, that
is, not first professed in presence of the Church—run risk of being
judged akin to adultery and fornication; nor must we let them, if
thereafter woven together by the covering of marriage, elude the
charge. But all the other frenzies of passions—impious both toward the
bodies and toward the sexes—beyond the laws of nature, we banish not
only from the threshold, but from all shelter of the Church, because
they are not sins, but monstrosities.
Of how deep guilt, then, adultery—which is likewise a matter of
fornication, in accordance with its criminal function—is to be
accounted, the Law of God first comes to hand to show us; if it is
true, (as it is), that after interdicting the superstitious service of
alien gods, and the making of idols themselves, after commending (to
religious observance) the veneration of the Sabbath, after commanding a
religious regard toward parents second (only to that) toward God, (that
Law) laid, as the next substratum in strengthening and fortifying such
counts, no other precept than "Thou shall not commit adultery." For
after spiritual chastity and sanctity followed corporeal integrity. And
this (the Law) accordingly fortified, by immediately prohibiting its
foe, adultery. Understand, consequently, what kind of sin (that must
be), the repression of which (the Law) ordained next to (that of)
idolatry. Nothing that is a second is remote from the first; nothing is
so dose to the first as the second. That which results from the first
is (in a sense) another first. And so adultery is bordering on
idolatry. For idolatry withal, often cast as a reproach upon the People
under the name of adultery and fornication, will be alike conjoined
therewith in fate as in following—will be alike co-heir therewith in
condemnation as in co-ordination. Yet further: premising "Thou shalt
not commit adultery," (the Law) adjoins, "Thou shalt not kill." It
honoured adultery, of course, to which it gives the precedence over
murder, in the very fore-front of the most holy law, among the primary
counts of the celestial edict, marking it with the inscription of the
very principal sins. From its place you may discern the measure, from
its rank the station, from its neighbourhood the merit, of each thing.
Even evil has a dignity, consisting in being stationed at the summit,
or else in the centre, of the superlatively bad. I behold a certain
pomp and circumstance of adultery: on the one side, Idolatry goes
before and leads the way; on the other, Murder follows in company.
Worthily, without doubt, has she taken her seat between the two most
conspicuous eminences of misdeeds, and has completely filled the vacant
space, as it were, in their midst, with an equal majesty of crime.
Enclosed by such flanks, encircled and supported by such ribs, who
shall dislocate her from the corporate mass of coherencies, from the
bond of neighbour crimes, from the embrace of kindred wickednesses, so
as to set apart her alone for the enjoyment of repentance? Will not on
one side Idolatry, on the other Murder, detain her, and (if they have
any voice) reclaim: "This is our wedge, this our compacting power? By
(the standard of) Idolatry we are measured; by her disjunctive
intervention we are conjoined; to her, outjutting from our midst, we
are united; the Divine Scripture has made us concorporate; the very
letters are our glue; herself can no longer exist without us. 'Many and
many a time do I, Idolatry, subminister occasion to Adultery; witness
my groves and my mounts, and the living waters, and the very temples in
cities, what mighty agents we are for overthrowing modesty.' 'I also,
Murder, sometimes exert myself on behalf of Adultery. To omit
tragedies, witness nowadays the poisoners, witness the magicians, how
many seductions I avenge, how many rivalries I revenge; how many
guards, how many informers, how many accomplices, I make away with.
Witness the midwives likewise, how many adulterous conceptions are
slaughtered.' Even among Christians there is no adultery without us.
Wherever the business of the unclean spirit is, there are idolatries;
wherever a man, by being polluted, is slain, there too is murder.
Therefore the remedial aids of repentance will not be suitable to them,
or else they will likewise be to us. We either detain Adultery, or else
follow her." These words the sins themselves do speak. If the sins are
deficient in speech, hard by (the door of the church) stands an
idolater, hard by stands a murderer; in their midst stands, too, an
adulterer. Alike, as the duty of repentance bids, they sit in sackcloth
and bristle in ashes; with the self-same weeping they groan; with the
selfsame prayers they make their circuits; with the self-same knees
they supplicate; the self-same mother they invoke. What doest thou,
gentlest and humanest Discipline? Either to all these will it be thy
duty so to be, for "blessed are the peacemakers;"[1] or else, if not to
all, it will be thy duty to range thyself on our side. Dost thou once
for all condemn the idolater and the murderer, but take the adulterer
out from their midst?—(the adulterer), the successor of the idolater,
the predecessor of the murderer, the colleague of each? It is "an
accepting of person:"[2] the more pitiable repentances thou hast left
(unpitied) behind!
Plainly, if you show by what patronages of heavenly precedents
and precepts it is that you open to adultery alone—and therein to
fornication also—the gate of repentance, at this very line our hostile
encounter will forthwith cross swords. Yet I must necessarily prescribe
you a law, not to stretch out your hand after the old things,[3] not to
look backwards:[4] for "the old things are passed away,"[5] according
to Isaiah; and "a renewing hath been renewed,"[6] according to
Jeremiah; and "forgetful of former things, we are reaching forward,"[7]
according to the apostle; and "the law and the prophets (were) until
John,"[8] according to the Lord. For even if we are just now beginning
with the Law in demonstrating (the nature of) adultery, it is justly
with that phase of the law which Christ has "not dissolved, but
fulfilled."[9] For it is the "burdens" of the law which were "until
John," not the remedial virtues. It is the "yokes" of "works" that have
been rejected, not those of disciplines.[1] "Liberty in Christ"[2] has
done no injury to innocence. The law of piety, sanctity, humanity,
truth, chastity, justice, mercy, benevolence, modesty, remains in its
entirety; in which law "blessed (is) the man who shall meditate by day
and by night."[3] About that (law) the same David (says) again: "The
law of the Lord (is) unblameable[4] converting souls; the statutes of
the Lord (are) direct, delighting hearts; the precept of the Lord
far-shining, enlightening eyes." Thus, too, the apostle: "And so the
law indeed is holy, and the precept holy and most good"[5]—"Thou shalt
not commit adultery," of course. But he had withal said above: "Are we,
then, making void the law through faith? Far be it; but we are
establishing the law "[6]—forsooth in those (points) which, being even
now interdicted by the New Testament, are prohibited by an even more
emphatic precept: instead of, "Thou shalt not commit adultery,"
"Whoever shall have seen with a view to concupiscence, hath already
committed adultery in his own heart; "[7] and instead of, "Thou shalt
not kill," "Whoever shall have said to his brother, Racha, shall be in
danger of hell."[8] Ask (yourself) whether the law of not committing
adultery be still in force, to which has been added that of not
indulging concupiscence. Besides, if any precedents (taken from the Old
Dispensation) shall favour you in (the secrecy of) your bosom, they
shall not be set in opposition to this discipline which we are
maintaining. For it is in vain that an additional law has been reared,
condemning the origin even of sins—that is, concupiscences and
wills—no less than the actual deeds; if the fact that pardon was of
old in some cases conceded to adultery is to be a reason why it shall
be conceded at the present day. "What will be the reward attaching to
the restrictions imposed upon the more fully developed discipline of
the present day, except that the eider (discipline) may be made the
agent for granting indulgence to your prostitution?" In that case, you
will grant pardon to the idolater too, and to every apostate, because
we find the People itself, so often guilty of these crimes, as often
reinstated in their former privileges. You will maintain communion,
too, with the murderer: because Ahab, by deprecation, washed away (the
guilt of) Naboth's blood;[9] and David, by confession, purged Uriah's
slaughter, together with its cause—adultery.[10] That done, you will
condone incests, too, for Lot's sake;[11] and fornications combined
with incest, for Judah's sake;[12] and base marriages with prostitutes,
for Hosea's sake;[13] and not only the frequent repetition of marriage,
but its simultaneous plurality, for our fathers' sakes: for, of come,
it is meet that there should also be a perfect equality of grace in
regard of all deeds to which indulgence was in days bygone granted, if
on the ground of some pristine precedent pardon is claimed for
adultery. We, too, indeed have precedents in the self-same antiquity on
the side of our opinion,—(precedents) of judgment not merely not
waived, but even summarily executed upon fornication. And of course it
is a sufficient one, that so vast a number—(the number) of 24,000—of
the People, when they committed fornication with the daughters of
Madian, fell in one plague.[14] But, with an eye to the glory of
Christ, I prefer to derive (my) discipline from Christ. Grant that the
pristine days may have had—if the Psychics please—even a right of
(indulging) every immodesty; grant that, before Christ, the flesh may
have disported itself, nay, may have perished before its Lord went to
seek and bring it back: not yet was it worthy of the gift of salvation;
not yet apt for the office of sanctity. It was still, up to that time,
accounted as being in Adam, with its own vicious nature, easily
indulging concupiscence after whatever it had seen to be "attractive to
the sight,"[15] and looking back at the lower things, and checking its
itching with fig-leaves.[16] Universally inherent was the virus of
lust—the dregs which are formed out of milk contain it—(dregs) fitted
(for so doing), in that even the waters themselves had not yet been
bathed. But when the Word of God descended into flesh,—(flesh) not
unsealed even by marriage,—and "the Word was made flesh,"[17]—(flesh)
never to be unsealed by marriage,—which was to find its way to the
tree not of incontinence, but of endurance; which was to taste from
that tree not anything sweet, but something bitter; which was to
pertain not to the infernal regions, but to heaven; which was to be
precinct not with the leaves of lasciviousness, but the flowers of
holiness;[18] which was to impart to the waters its own
purities—thenceforth, whatever flesh (is) "in Christ"[19] has lost its
pristine soils, is now a thing different, emerges in a new state, no
longer (generated) of the slime of natural seed, nor of the grime of
concupiscence, but of "pure water" and a "clean Spirit." And,
accordingly, why excuse it on the ground of pristine precedent? It did
not bear the names of "body of Christ,"[1] of "members of Christ,"[2]
of "temple of God,"[3] at the time When it used to obtain pardon for
adultery. And thus if, from the moment when it changed its condition,
and "having been baptized into Christ put on Christ,"[4] and was
"redeemed with a great price"—"the blood," to wit, "of the Lord and
Lamb"[5]—you take hold of any one precedent (be it precept, or law, or
sentence,) of indulgence granted, or to be granted, to adultery and
fornication,—you have likewise at our hands a definition of the time
from which the age of the question dates.
You shall have leave to begin with the parables, where you have
the lost ewe re-sought by the Lord, and carried back on His
shoulders.[6] Let the very paintings upon your cups come forward to
show whether even in them the figurative meaning of that sheep will
shine through (the outward semblance, to teach) whether a Christian or
heathen sinner be the object it aims at in the matter of restoration.
For we put in a demurrer arising out of the teaching of nature, out of
the law of ear and tongue, out of the soundness of the mental faculty,
to the effect that such answers are always given as are called forth
(by the question,—answers), that is, to the (questions) which call
them forth. That which was calling forth (an answer in the present
case) was, I take it, the fact that the Pharisees were muttering in
indignation at the Lord's admitting to His society heathen publicans
and sinners, and communicating with them in food. When, in reply to
this, the Lord had figured the restoration of the lost ewe, to whom
else is it credible that he configured it but to the lost heathen,
about whom the question was then in hand,—not about a Christian, who
up to that time had no existence? Else, what kind of (hypothesis) is it
that the Lord, like a quibbler in answering, omitting the present
subject-matter which it was His duty to refute, should spend His labour
about one yet future? "But a 'sheep' properly means a Christian,[7] and
the Lord's 'flock' is the people of the Church,[8] and the 'good
shepherd' is Christ;[9] and hence in the 'sheep' we must understand a
Christian who has erred from the Church's 'flock.'" In that case, you
make the Lord to have given no answer to the Pharisees' muttering, but
to your presumption. And yet you will be bound so to defend that
presumption, as to deny that the (points) which you think applicable to
Christians are referable to a heathen. Tell me, is not all mankind one
flock of God? Is not the same GOD both Lord and Shepherd of the
universal nations?[10] Who more "perishes" from God than the heathen,
so long as he "errs?" Who is more "re-sought" by God than the heathen,
when he is recalled by Christ? In fact, it is among heathens that this
order finds antecedent place; if, that is, Christians are not otherwise
made out of heathens than by being first "lost," and "re-sought" by
God, and "carried back" by Christ. So likewise ought this order to be
kept, that we may interpret any such (figure) with reference to those
in whom it finds prior place. But you, I take it, would wish this: that
He should represent the ewe as lost not from a flock, but from an ark
or a chest! In like manner, albeit He calls the remaining number of the
heathens "righteous," it does not follow that He shows them to be
Christians; dealing as He is with Jews, and at that very moment
refuting them, because they were indignant at the hope of the heathens.
But in order to express, in opposition to the Pharisees' envy, His own
grace and goodwill even in regard of one heathen, He preferred the
salvation of one sinner by repentance to theirs by righteousness; or
else, pray, were the Jews not "righteous," and such as "had no need of
repentance," having, as they had, as pilotages of discipline and
instruments of fear, "the Law and the Prophets?" He set them therefore
in the parable—and if not such as they were, yet such as they ought to
have been—that they migh blush the more when they heard that
repentance was necessary to others, and not to themselves.
Similarly, the parable of the drachma,[11] as being called forth
out of the same subject-matter, we equally interpret with reference to
a heathen; albeit it had been "lost" in a house, as it were in the
church; albeit "found" by aid of a "lamp," as it were by aid of God's
word.[12] Nay, but this whole world is the one house of all; in which
world it is more the heathen, who is found in darkness, whom the grace
of God enlightens, than the Christian, who is already in God's
light.[13] Finally, it is one "straying" which is ascribed to the ewe
and the drachma: (and this is an evidence in my favour); for if the
parables had been composed with a view to a Christian sinner, after the
loss of his faith, a second loss and restoration of them would have
been noted. I will now withdraw for a short time from this position;
in order that I may, even by withdrawing, the more recommend it, when I
shall have succeeded even thus also in confuting the presumption of the
opposite side. I admit that the sinner portrayed in each parable is one
who is already a Christian; yet not that on this account must he be
affirmed to be such an one as can be restored, through repentance, from
the crime of adultery and fornication. For although he be said to "have
perished," there will be the kind of perdition to treat of; inasmuch as
the "ewe" "perished" not by dying, but by straying; and the "drachma"
not by being destroyed, but by being hidden. In this sense, a thing
which is safe may be said to "have perished." Therefore the believer,
too, "perishes," by lapsing out of (the right path) into a public
exhibition of charioteering frenzy, or gladiatorial gore, or scenic
foulness, or athletic vanity; or else if he has lent the aid of any
special "arts of curiosity" to sports, to the convivialities of heathen
solemnity, to official exigence, to the ministry of another's idolatry;
if he has impaled himself upon some word of ambiguous denial, or else
of blasphemy. For some such cause he has been driven outside the flock;
or even himself, perhaps, by anger, by pride, by jealousy, (or)—as, in
fact, often happens—by disdaining to submit to chastisement, has
broken away (from it). He ought to be re-sought and recalled. That
which can be recovered does not "perish," unless it persist in
remaining outside. You will well interpret the parable by recalling the
sinner while he is still living. But, for the adulterer and fornicator,
I who is there who has not pronounced him to be dead immediately upon
commission of the crime? With what face will you restore to the flock
one who is dead, on the authority of that parable which recalls a sheep
not dead?
Finally, if you are mindful of the prophets, when they are
chiding the shepherds, there is a word—I think it is Ezekiel's:
"Shepherds, hold, ye devour the milk, and clothe you with the fleeces:
what is strong ye have slain; what is weak ye have not tended; what is
shattered ye have not bound; what has been driven out ye have not
brought back; what has perished ye have not re-sought."[1] Pray, does
he withal upbraid them at all concerning that which is dead, that they
have taken no care to restore that too to the flock? Plainly, he makes
it an additional reproach that they have caused the sheep to perish,
and to be eaten up by the beasts of the field; nor can they either
"perish mortally," or be "eaten up," if they are left remaining. "Is it
not possible—(granting) that ewes which have been mortally lost, and
eaten up, are recovered—that (in accordance also with the example of
the drachma (lost and found again) even within the house of God, the
Church) there may be some sins of a moderate character, proportionable
to the small size and the weight of a drachma, which, lurking in the
same Church, and by and by in the same discovered, forthwith are
brought to an end in the same with the joy of amendment?" But of
adultery and fornication it is not a drachma, but a talent, (which is
the measure); and for searching them out there is need not of the
javelin-light of a lamp, but of the spear-like ray of the entire sun.
No sooner has (such a) man made his appearance than he is expelled from
the Church; nor does he remain there; nor does he cause joy to the
Church which discovers him, but grief; nor does he invite the
congratulation of her neighbours, but the fellowship in sadness of the
surrounding fraternities.
By comparison, even in this way, of this our interpretation with
theirs, the arguments of both the ewe and the drachma will all the more
refer to the heathen, that they cannot possibly apply to the Christian
guilty of the sin for the sake of which they are wrested into a forced
application to the Christian on the opposite side.
But, however, the majority of interpreters of the parables are
deceived by the self-same result as is of very frequent occurrence in
the case of embroidering garments with purple. When you think that you
have judiciously harmonized the proportions of the hues, and believe
yourself to have succeeded in skilfully giving vividness to their
mutual combination; presently, when each body (of colour) and (the
various) lights are fully developed, the convicted diversity will
expose all the error. In the self-same darkness, accordingly, with
regard to the parable of the two, sons also, they are led by some
figures (occurring in it), which harmonize in hue with the present
(state of things), to wander out of the path of the true light of that
comparison which the subject-matter of the parable presents. For they
set down, as represented in the two sons, two peoples—the eider the
Jewish, the younger the Christian: for they cannot in the sequel
arrange for the Christian sinner, in the person of the younger son, to
obtain pardon, unless in the person of the eider they first portray the
Jewish. Now, if I shall succeed in showing that the Jewish fails to
suit the comparison of the elder son, the consequence of course will
be, that the Christian will not be admissible (as represented) by the
joint figure of the younger son. For although the Jew withal be called
"a son," and an "elder one," inasmuch as he had priority in
adoption;[2] although, too, he envy the Christian the reconciliation of
God the Father,—a point which the opposite side most eagerly catches
at,—still it will be no speech of a Jew to the Father: "Behold, in how
many years do I serve Thee, and Thy precept have I never transgressed."
For when has the Jew not been a transgressor of the law; hearing with
the ear, and not hearing;[1] holding in hatred him who reproveth in the
gates,[2] and in scorn holy speech?[3] So, too, it will be no speech of
the Father to the Jew: "Thou art always with Me, and all Mine are
thine." For the Jews are pronounced "apostate sons, begotten indeed and
raised on high, but who have not understood the Lord, and who have
quite forsaken the LORD, and have provoked unto anger the Holy One of
Israel."[4] That all things, plainly, were conceded to the Jew, we
shall admit; but he has likewise had every more savoury morsel torn
from his throat,[5] not to say the very land of paternal promise. And
accordingly the Jew at the present day, no less than the younger son,
having squandered God's substance, is a beggar in alien territory,
serving even until now its princes, that is, the princes of this
world.[6] Seek, therefore, the Christians some other as their brother;
for the Jew the parable does not admit. Much more aptly would they have
matched the Christian with the elder, and the Jew with the younger son,
"according to the analogy of faith,"[7] if the order of each people as
intimated from Rebecca's womb[8] permitted the inversion: only that (in
that case) the concluding paragraph would oppose them; for it will he
fitting for the Christian to rejoice, and not to grieve, at the
restoration of Israel, if it he true, (as it is), that the whole of our
hope is intimately united with the remaining expectation of Israel.[9]
Thus, even if some (features in the parable) are favourable, yet by
others of a contrary significance the thorough carrying out of this
comparison is destroyed; although (albeit all points be capable of
corresponding with mirror-like accuracy) there he one cardinal danger
in interpretations—the danger lest the felicity of our comparisons be
tempered with a different aim from that which the subject-matter of
each particular parable has bidden us (temper it). For we remember (to
have seen) actors withal, white accommodating allegorical gestures to
their ditties, giving expression to such as are far different from the
immediate plot, and scene, and character, and yet with the utmost
congruity. But away with extraordinary ingenuity, for it has nothing to
do with our subject. Thus heretics, too, apply the self-same parables
where they list, and exclude them (in other cases)—not where they
ought—with the utmost aptitude. Why the utmost aptitude? Because from
the very beginning they have moulded together the very subject-matters
of their doctrines in accordance with the opportune incidences of the
parables. Loosed as they are from the constraints of the rule of truth,
they have had leisure, of course, to search into and put together those
things of which the parables seem (to be symbolical).
We, however, who do not make the parables the sources whence we
devise our subject-matters, but the subject-matters the sources whence
we interpret the parables, do not labour hard, either, to twist all
things (into shape) in the exposition, while we take care to avoid all
contradictions. Why "an hundred sheep?" and why, to be sure, "ten
drachmas?" And what is that "besom?" Necessary it was that He who was
desiring to express the extreme pleasure which the salvation of one
sinner gives to God, should name some special quantity of a numerical
whole from which to describe that "one" had perished. Necessary it was
that the style of one engaged in searching for a "drachma" in a
"house," should be aptly fitted with the helpful accompaniment of a
"besom" as well as of a "lamp." For curious niceties of this kind not
only render some things suspected, but, by the subtlety of forced
explanations, generally lead away from the truth. There are, moreover,
some points which are just simply introduced with a view to the
structure and disposition and texture of the parable, in order that
they may be worked up throughout to the end for which the typical
example is being provided. Now, of course the (parable of) the two sons
will point to the same end as (those of) the drachma and the ewe: for
it has the self-same cause (to call it forth) as those to which it
coheres, and the selfsame "muttering," of course, of the Pharisees at
the intercourse between the Lord and heathens. Or else, if any doubts
that in the land of Judea, subjugated as it had been long since by the
hand of Pompey and of Lucullus, the publicans were heathens, let him
read Deuteronomy: "There shall be no tribute-weigher of the sons of
Israel."[10] Nor would the name of publicans have been so execrable in
the eyes of the Lord, unless as being a "strange", name,—a (name) of
such as put up the pathways of the very sky, and earth, and sea, for
sale. Moreover, when (the writer) adjoins "sinners" to "publicans,"(2)
it does not follow that he shows them to have been Jews, albeit some
may possibly have been so; but by placing on a par the one genus of
heathens—some sinners by office, that is, publicans; some by nature,
that is, not publicans—he has drawn a distinction between them.
Besides, the Lord would not have been censured for partaking of food
with Jews, but with heathens, from whose board the Jewish discipline
excludes (its disciples).(3)
Now we must proceed, in the case of the prodigal son, to consider
first that which is more useful; for no adjustment of examples, albeit
in the most nicely-poised balance, shall be admitted if it shall prove
to be most hurtful to salvation. But the whole system of salvation, as
it is comprised in the maintenance of discipline, we see is being
subverted by that interpretation which is affected by the opposite
side. For if it is a Christian who, after wandering far from his
Father, squanders, by living heathenishly, the "substance" received
from God his Father,—(the substance), of course, of baptism—(the
substance), of course, of the Holy Spirit, and (in consequence) of
eternal hope; if, stripped of his mental "goods," he has even handed
his service over to the prince of the world (4)—who else but the
devil?—and by him being appointed over the business of "feeding
swine"—of tending unclean spirits, to wit—has recovered his senses so
as to return to his Father,—the result will be, that, not adulterers
and fornicators, but idolaters, and blasphemers, and renegades, and
every class of apostates, will by this parable make satisfaction to the
Father; and in this way (it may) rather (be said that) the whole
"substance" of the sacrament is most truly wasted away. For who will
fear to squander what he has the power of afterwards recovering? Who
will be careful to preserve to perpetuity what he will be able to lose
not to perpetuity? Security in sin is likewise an appetite for it.
Therefore the apostate withal will recover his former "garment," the
robe of the Holy Spirit; and a renewal of the "ring," the sign and seal
of baptism; and Christ will again be "slaughtered;"(5) and he will
recline on that couch from which such as are unworthily clad are wont
to be lifted by the torturers, and cast away into darkness,(6)—much
more such as have been stripped. It is therefore a further step if it
is not expedient, (any more than reasonable), that the story of the
prodigal son should apply to a Christian. Wherefore, if the image of a
"son" is not entirely suitable to a Jew either, our interpretation
shall be simply governed with an eye to the object the Lord had in
view. The Lord had come, of course, to save that which "had
perished;"(7) "a Physician." necessary to "the sick" "more than to the
whole."(8) This fact He was in the habit both of typifying in parables
and preaching in direct statements. Who among men "perishes," who falls
from health, but he who knows not the Lord? Who is "safe and sound,"
but he who knows the Lord? These two classes—"brothers" by birth—this
parable also will signify. See whether the heathen have in God the
Father the "substance" of origin, and wisdom, and natural power of
Godward recognition; by means of which power the apostle withal notes
that "in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom knew not
God,"(9)—(wisdom) which, of course, it had received originally from
God. This ("substance"), accordingly, he "squandered;" having been cast
by his moral habits far from the Lord, amid the errors and allurements
and appetites of the world, (10) where, compelled by hunger after
truth," he handed himself over to the prince of this age. He set him
over "swine," to feed that flock familiar to demons,(12) where he would
not be master of a supply of vital food, and at the same time would see
others (engaged) in a divine work, having abundance of heavenly bread.
He remembers his Father, God; he returns to Him when he has been
satisfied; he receives again the pristine "garment,"—the condition, to
wit, which Adam by transgression had lost. The "ring" also he is then
Wont to receive for the first time, wherewith, after being
interrogated,(13) he publicly seals the agreement of faith, and thus
thenceforward feeds upon the "fatness" of the Lord's body,—the
Eucharist, to wit. This will be the prodigal son, who never in days
bygone was thrifty; who was from the first prodigal, because not from
the first a Christian. Him withal, returning from the world to the
Father's embraces, the Pharisees mourned over, in the persons of the
"publicans and sinners." And accordingly to this point alone the elder
brother's envy is adapted: not because the Jews were innocent, and
obedient to God, but because they envied the nation salvation; being
plainly 84
they who ought to have been "ever with" the Father. And of course it is immediately over the first calling of the Christian that the Jew groans, not over his second restoration: for the former reflects its rap even upon the heathen; but the latter, which takes place in the churches, is not known even to the Jews. I think that I have advanced interpretations more consonant with the subject-matter of the parables, and the congruity of things, and the preservation of disciplines. But if the view with which the opposite party is eager to mould the ewe, and the dracnma, and the voluptuousness of the son to the shape of the Christian sinner, is that they may endow adultery and fornication with (the gift of) repentance; it will be fitting either that all other crimes equally capital should be conceded remissible, or else that their peers, adultery and fornication, should be retained inconcessible.
But it is more (to the point) that it is not lawful to draw
conclusions about anything else than the subject which was immediately
in hand. In short, if it were lawful to transfer the parables to other
ends (than they were originally intended for), it would be rather to
martyrdom that we would direct the hope drawn from those now in
question; for that is the only thing which, after all his substance has
been squandered, will be able to restore the son; and will joyfully
proclaim that the drachma has been found, albeit among all (rubbish) on
a dungheap; and will carry back into the flock on the shoulders of the
Lord Himself the ewe, fugitive though she have been over all that is
rough and rugged. But we prefer, if it must be so, to be less wise in
the Scriptures, than to be wise against them. We are as much bound to
keep the sense of the Lord as His precept. Transgression in
interpretation is not lighter than in conversation.
When, therefore, the yoke which forbade the discussion of these
parables with a view to the heathens has been shaken off, and the
necessity Once for all discerned or admitted of not interpreting
otherwise than is (suitable to) the subject-matter of the proposition;
they contend in the next place, that the official proclamation of
repentance is not even applicable to heathens, since their sins are not
amenable to it, imputable as they are to ignorance, which nature alone
renders culpable before God. Hence the remedies are unintelligible to
such to whom the perils themselves are unintelligible: whereas the
principle of repentance finds there its corresponding place where sin
is committed with conscience and will, where both the fault and the
favour are intelligible; that he who mourns, he who prostrates himself,
is he who knows both what he has lost and what he will recover if he
makes to God the offering of his repentance—to God who, of course,
offers that repentance rather to sons than to strangers.
Was that, then, the reason why Jonah thought not repentance
necessary to the heathen Ninevites, when he tergiversated in the duty
of preaching? or did he rather, foreseeing the mercy of God poured
forth even upon strangers, fear that that mercy would, as it were,
destroy (the credit of) his proclamation? and accordingly, for the sake
of a profane city, not yet possessed of a knowledge of God, still
sinning in ignorance, did the prophet well-nigh perish?(1) except that
he suffered a typical example of the Lord's passion, which was to
redeem heathens as well (as others) on their repentance. It is enough
for me that even John, when "strewing the Lord's ways,"(2) was the
herald of repentance no less to such as were on military service and to
publicans, than to the sons of Abraham.(3) The Lord Himself presumed
repentance on the part of the Sidonians and Tyrians if they had seen
the evidences of His "miracles."(4)
Nay, but I will even contend that repentance is more competent to
natural sinners than to voluntary. For he will merit its fruit who has
not yet used more than he who has already withal abused it; and
remedies will be more effective on their first application than when
outworn. No doubt the Lord is "kind" to "the unthankful,"(5) rather
than to the ignorant! and "merciful" to the "reprobates" sooner than to
such as have yet had no probation! so that in-suits offered to His
clemency do not rather incur His anger than His caresses! and He does
not more willingly impart to strangers that (clemency) which, in the
case of His own sons, He has lost, seeing that He has thus adopted the
Gentiles while the Jews make sport of His patience! But what the
Psychics mean is this—that God, the Judge of righteousness, prefers
the repentance to the death of that sinner who has preferred death to
repentance! If this is so, it is by sinning that we merit favour.
Come, you rope-walker upon modesty, and chastity, and every kind
of sexual sanctity, who, by the instrumentality of a discipline of this
nature remote from the path of truth, mount with uncertain footstep
upon a most slender thread, balancing flesh with spirit, moderating
your animal principle by faith, tempering your eye by fear; why are you
thus wholly engaged in a single step? Go on, if you succeed in finding
power and will, while you are so secure, and 85
as it were upon solid ground. For if any wavering of the flesh, any distraction of the mind, any wandering of the eye, shall chance to shake you down from your equipoise, "God is good." To His own (children), not to heathens, He opens His bosom: a second repentance will await you; you will again, from being an adulterer, be a Christian! These (pleas) you (will urge) to me, most benignant interpreter of God. But I would yield my ground to you, if the scripture of" the Shepherd,"(1) which is the only one which favours adulterers, had deserved to find a place in the Divine canon; if it had not been habitually judged by every council of Churches (even of your own) among apocryphal and false (writings); itself adulterous, and hence a patroness of its comrades; from which in other respects, too, you derive initiation; to which, perchance, that" Shepherd (1) will play the patron whom you depict upon your (sacramental) chalice, (depict, I say, as) himself withal a prostitutor of the Christian sacrament, (and hence) worthily both the idol of drunkenness, and the brize of adultery by which the chalice will quickly be followed, (a chalice) from which you sip nothing more readily than (the flavour of) the "ewe" of (your) second repentance! I, however, imbibe the Scriptures of that Shepherd who cannot be broken. Him John forthwith offers me, together with the layer and duty of repentance; (and offers Him as) saying, "Bear worthy fruits of repentance: and say not, We have Abraham (as our) father"—for fear, to wit, lest they should again take flattering unctions for delinquency from the grace shown to the fathers—"for God is able from these stones to raise sons to Abraham." Thus it follows that we too (must judge) such as "sin no more" (as) "bearing worthy fruits of repentance." For what more ripens as the fruit of repentance than the achievement of emendation? But even if pardon is rather the" fruit of repentance," even pardon cannot co-exist without the cessation from sin. So is the cessation from sin the root of pardon, that pardon may be the fruit of repentance.
From the side of its pertinence to the Gospel, the question of
the parables indeed has by this time been disposed of. If, however, the
Lord, by His deeds withal, issued any such proclamation in favour of
sinners; as when He permitted contact even with his own body to the
"woman, a sinner,"—washing, as she did, His feet with tears, and
wiping them with her hair, and inaugurating His sepulture with
ointment; as when to the Samaritaness—not an adulteress by her now
sixth marriage, but a prostitute—He showed (what He did show readily
to any one) who He was; (2)—no benefit is hence conferred upon our
adversaries, even if it had been to such as were already Christians
that He (in these several cases) granted pardon. For we now affirm:
This is lawful to the Lord alone: may the power of His indulgence be
operative at the present day!(3) At those times, however, in which He
lived on earth we lay this down definitively, that it is no prejudgment
against us if pardon used to be conferred on sinners—even Jewish ones.
For Christian discipline dates from the renewing of the Testament,(4)
and (as we have premised) from the redemption of flesh—that is, the
Lord's passion. None was perfect before the discovery of the order of
faith; none a Christian before the resumption of Christ to heaven; none
holy before the manifestation of the Holy Spirit from heaven, the
Determiner of discipline itself.
Accordingly, these who have received "another Paraclete" in and
through the apostles,—(a Paraclete) whom, not recognising Him even in
His special prophets, they no longer possess in the apostles
either;—come, now, let them, even from the apostolic instrument, teach
us the possibility that the stains of a flesh which after baptism has
been repolluted, can by repentance be washed away. Do we not, in the
apostles also, recognise the form of the Old Law with regard to the
demonstration of adultery, how great (a crime) it is; lest perchance it
be esteemed more trivial in the new stage of disciplines than in the
old? When first the Gospel thundered and shook the old system to its
base, when dispute was being held on the question of retaining or not
the Law; this is the first rule which the apostles, on the authority of
the Holy Spirit, send out to those who were already beginning to be
gathered to their side out of the nations: "It has seemed (good)," say
they, "to the Holy Spirit and to us to cast upon you no ampler weight
than (that) of those (things) from which it is necessary that
abstinence be observed; from sacrifices, and from fornications, and
from blood:(5) by abstaining from which ye act rightly, the Holy Spirit
carrying you." Sufficient it is, that in this place withal there has
been preserved to adultery and fornication the post of their own honour
between idolatry and mur- der: for the interdict upon "blood" we shall
understand to be (an interdict) much more upon human blood. Well, then,
in what light do the apostles will those crimes to appear which alone
they select, in the way of careful guarding against, from the pristine
Law? which alone they prescribe as necessarily to be abstained from?
Not that they permit others; but that these alone they put in the
foremost rank, of course as not remissible; (they,) who, for the
heathens' sake, made the other burdens of the law remissible. Why,
then, do they release our neck from so heavy a yoke, except to place
forever upon those (necks) these compendia of discipline? Why do they
indulgently relax so many bonds, except that they may wholly bind us in
perpetuity to such as are more necessary? They loosed us from the more
numerous, that we might be bound up to abstinence from the more
noxious. The matter has been settled by compensation: we have gained
much, in order that we may render some- what. But the compensation is
not revocable; if, that is, it will be revoked by
iteration—(iteration) of adultery, of course, and blood and idolatry:
for it will follow that the (burden of) the whole law will be incurred,
if the condition of pardon shall be violated. But it is not lightly
that the Holy Spirit has come to an agreement with us—coming to this
agreement even without our asking; whence He is the more to be
honoured. His engagement none but an ungrateful man will dissolve. In
that event, He will neither accept back what He has discarded, nor
discard what He has retained. Of the latest Testament the condition is
ever immutable; and, of course the public recitation of that decree,(1)
and the counsel embodied therein, will cease (only) with the word.(2)
He has definitely enough refused pardon to those crimes the careful
avoidance whereof He selectively enjoined; He has claimed whatever He
has not inferentially conceded. Hence it is that there is no
restoration of peace granted by the Churches to "idolatry" or to
"blood." From which final decision of theirs that the apostles should
have departed, is (I think) not lawful to believe; or else, if some
find it possible to believe so, they will be bound to prove it.
We know plainly at this point, too, the suspicions which they
raise. For, in fact, they suspect the Apostle Paul of having, in the
second (Epistle) to the Corinthians, granted pardon to the self-same
fornicator whom in the first he has publicly sentenced to be
"surrendered to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh,"(3)—impious
heir as he was to his father's wedlock; as if he subsequently erased
his own words, writing: "But if any hath wholly saddened, he hath not
wholly saddened me, but in part, lest I burden you all. Sufficient is
such a chiding which is given by many; so that, on the contrary, ye
should prefer to forgive and console, lest, perhaps, by more abundant
sadness, such an one be devoured. For which reason, I pray you, confirm
toward him affection. For to this end withal have I written, that I may
learn a proof of you, that in all (things) ye are obedient to me. But
if ye shall have forgiven any, so (do) I; for I, too, if I have
forgiven ought, have forgiven in the person of Christ, lest we be
overreached by Satan, since we are not ignorant of his injections."(4)
What (reference) is understood here to the fornicator? what to the
contaminator of his father's bed?(5) what to the Christian who had
overstepped the shamelessness of heathens?—since, of course, he would
have absolved by a special pardon one whom he had condemned by a
special anger. He is more obscure in his pity than in his indignation.
He is more open m his austerity than in his lenity. And yet,
(generally), anger is more readily indirect than indulgence. Things of
a sadder are more wont to hesitate than things of a more joyous cast.
Of course the question in hand concerned some moderate indulgence;
which (moderation in the indulgence) was now, if ever, to be divined,
when it is usual for all the greatest indulgences not to be granted
without public proclamation, so far (are they from being granted)
without particularization. Why, do you yourself, when introducing into
the church, for the purpose of melting the brotherhood by his prayers,
the repentant adulterer, lead into the midst and prostrate him, all in
haircloth and ashes, a compound of disgrace and horror, before the
widows, before the elders, suing for the tears of all, licking the
footprints of all, clasping the knees of all? And do you, good shepherd
and blessed father that you are, to bring about the (desired) end of
the man, grace your harangue with all the allurements of mercy in your
power, and under the parable of the "ewe" go in quest of your goats?(6)
do you, for fear lest your "ewe" again take a leap out from the
flock—as if that were no more lawful for the future which was not even
once lawful—fill all the rest likewise full of apprehension at the
very moment of granting indulgence? And would the apostle so carelessly
have granted indulgence to the atrocious licentiousness of fornication
burdened with incest, as not at least to have exacted from the criminal
even this legally established garb of repentance which you ought to
have learned from him? as to have uttered no commination on the past?
no allocution touching the future? Nay, more; he goes further, and
beseeches that they "would confirm toward him affection," as if he were
making satisfaction to him, not as if he were granting an indulgence!
And yet I hear (him speak of) "affection," not "communion;" as (he
writes) withal to the Thessalonians "But if any obey not our word
through the epistle, him mark; and associate not with him, that he may
feel awed; not regarding (him) as an enemy, but rebuking as a
brother."(1) Accordingly, he could have said that to a fornicator, too,
"affection" only was conceded, not "communion "as well; to an
incestuous man, however, not even "affection;" whom he would, to be
sure, have bidden to be banished from their midst(2)—much more, of
course, from their mind. "But he was apprehensive lest they should be
'overreached by Satan' with regard to the loss of that person whom
himself had cast forth to Satan; or else lest, 'by abundance of
mourning, he should be devoured 'whom he had sentenced to 'destruction
of the flesh.'" Here they go so far as to interpret "destruction of the
flesh" the office of repentance; in that by fasts, and squalor, and
every species of neglect and studious ill-treatment devoted to the
extermination of the flesh, it seems to make satisfaction to God; so
that they argue that that fornicator—that incestuous person
rather—having been delivered by the apostle to Satan, not with a view
to "perdition," but with a view to "emendation," on the hypothesis that
subsequently he would, on account of the "destruction" (that is, the
general affliction) "of the flesh," attain pardon, therefore did
actually attain it. Plainly, the selfsame apostle delivered to Satan
Hymenaeus and Alexander, "that they might be emended into not
blaspheming,"(3) as he writes to his Timotheus. "But withal himself
says that a stake was given him, an angel of Satan," by which he was to
be buffeted, lest he should exalt himself" If they touch upon this
(instance) withal, in order to lead us to understand that such as were
"delivered to Sam" by him (were so delivered) with a view to
emendation, not to perdition; what similarity is there between
blasphemy and incest, and a soul entirely free from these,—nay, rather
elated from no other source than the highest sanctity and all
innocence; which (elation of soul) was being restrained in the apostle
by "buffets," if you will, by means (as they say) of pain in the ear or
head? Incest, however, and blasphemy, deserved to have delivered the
entire persons of men to Satan himself for a possession, not to "an
angel" of his. And (there is yet another point): for about this it
makes a difference, nay, rather withal in regard to this it is of the
utmost consequence, that we find those men delivered by the apostle to
Satan, but to the apostle himself an angel of Satan given. Lastly, when
Paul is praying the Lord for its removal, what does he hear? "Hold my
grace sufficient; for virtue is perfected in infirmity."(5) This they
who are surrendered to Satan cannot hear. Moreover, if the crime of
Hymenaeus and Alexander—blasphemy, to wit—is irremissible in this and
in the future. age,(6) of course the apostle would not, in opposition
to the determinate decision of the Lord, have given to Satan, under a
hope of pardon, men already sunken from the faith into blasphemy;
whence, too, he pronounced them "shipwrecked with regard to faith,"(7)
having no longer the solace of the ship, the Church. For to those who,
after believing, have struck upon (the rock of) blasphemy, pardon is
denied; on the other hand, heathens and heretics are daily emerging out
of blasphemy. But even if he did say, "I delivered them to Satan, that
they might receive the discipline of not blaspheming," he said it of
the rest, who, by their deliverance to Satan—that is, their projection
outside the Church—had to be trained in the knowledge that there must
be no blaspheming. So, therefore, the incestuous fornicator, too, he
delivered, not with a view to emendation, but with a view to perdition,
to Satan, to whom he had already, by sinning above an heathen, gone
over; that they might learn there must be no fornicating. Finally, he
says, "for the destruction of the flesh," not its "torture"—condemning
the actual substance through which he had fallen out (of the faith),
which substance had already perished immediately on the loss of
baptism—" in order that the spirit," he says, "may be saved in the day
of the Lord." And (here, again, is a difficulty): for let this point be
inquired into, whether the man's own spirit will be saved. In that
case, a spirit polluted with so great a wickedness will be saved; the
object of the perdition of the flesh being, that the spirit may be
saved in penalty. In that case, the interpretation which is contrary to
ours will recognise a penalty without the flesh, if we lose the
resurrection of the flesh. It remains, therefore, that his meaning was,
that that spirit which is accounted to exist in the Church must be
presented "saved," that is, untainted by the contagion of impurities in
the day of the Lord, by the ejection of the incestuous fornicator; if,
that is, he subjoins: "Know ye not, that a little leaven spoileth the
savour of the whole lump?"(1) And yet incestuous fornication was not a
little, but a large, leaven.
And—these intervening points having accordingly been got rid
of—I return to the second of Corinthians; in order to prove that this
saying also of the apostle, "Sufficient to such a man be this rebuke
which (is administered) by many," is not suitable to the person of the
fornicator. For if he had sentenced him "to be surrendered to Satan for
the destruction of the flesh," of course he had condemned rather than
rebuked him. Some other, then, it was to whom he willed the "rebuke" to
be sufficient; if, that is, the fornicator had incurred not "rebuke"
from his sentence, but "condemnation." For I offer you withal, for your
investigation, this very question: Whether there were in the first
Epistle others, too, who "wholly saddened" the apostle by "acting
disorderly,"(2) and "were wholly saddened" by him, through incurring
(his) "rebuke," according to the sense of the second Epistle; of whom
some particular one may in that (second Epistle) have received pardon.
Direct we, moreover, our attention to the entire first Epistle, written
(that I may so say) as a whole, not with ink, but with gall; swelling,
indignant, disdainful, comminatory, invidious, and shaped through (a
series of) individual charges, with an eye to certain individuals who
were, as it were, the proprietors of those charges? For so had schisms,
and emulations, and discussions, and presumptions, and elations, and
contentions required, that they should be laden with invidiousness, and
rebuffed with curt reproof, and filed down by haughtiness, and deterred
by austerity. And what kind of invidiousness is the pungency of
humility? "To God I give thanks that I have baptized none of you,
except Crispus and Gaius, lest any say that I have baptized in mine own
name."(3) "For neither did I judge to know anything among you but Jesus
Christ, and Him crucified."(4) And, "(I think) God hath selected us the
apostles (as) hindmost, like men appointed to fight with wild beasts;
since we have been made a spectacle to this world, both to angels and
to men:" And, "We have been made the offscourings of this world, the
refuse of all:" And, "Am I not free? am I not an apostle? have I not
seen Christ Jesus our Lord?"(5) With what kind of superciliousness, on
the contrary, was he compelled to declare, "But to me it is of small
moment that I be interrogated by you, or by a human court-day; for
neither am I conscious to myself (of any guilt);" and, "My glory none
shall make empty."(6) "Know ye not that we are to judge angels?"(7)
Again, of how open censure (does) the free expression (find utterance),
how manifest the edge of the spiritual sword, (in words like these):
"Ye are already enriched! ye are already satiated! ye are already
reigning!" (8) and, "If any thinks himself to know, he knoweth not yet
how it behaves him to know I"(9) Is he not even then "smiting some
one's face,"(10) in saying, "For who maketh thee to differ? What,
moreover, hast thou which thou hast not received? Why gloriest thou as
if thou have not received?" (11) Is he not withal "smiting them upon
the mouth,"(12) (in saying): "But some, in (their) conscience, even
until now eat (it) as if (it were) an idol-sacrifice. But, so sinning,
by shocking the weak consciences of the brethren thoroughly, they will
sin against Christ."(13) By this time, indeed, (he mentions
individuals) by name: "Or have we not a power of eating., and of
drinking, and of leading about women, just as the other apostles
withal, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?" and, "If others
attain to (a share) in power over you, (may) not we rather?" In like
manner he pricks them, too, with an individualizing pen: "Wherefore,
let him who thinketh himself to be standing, see lest he fall;" and,
"If any seemeth to be contentious, we have not such a custom, nor (has)
the Church of the Lord." With such a final clause (as the following),
wound up with a malediction, "If any loveth not the Lord Jesus, be he
anathema maranatha," he is, of course, striking same particular
individual through.
But I will rather take my stand at that point where the apostle
is more fervent, where the fornicator himself has troubled others also.
"As if I be not about to come unto you, some are inflated. But I will
come with more speed, if the Lord shall have permitted, and will learn
not the speech of those who are inflated, but the power. For the
kingdom of God is not in speech, but in power. And what will ye? shall
I come unto you in a rod, or in a spirit of lenity?" For what was to
succeed? "There is heard among you generally fornication, and such
fornication as (is) not (heard) even among the Gentiles, that one
should have his own father's wife. And are ye inflated, and have ye not
rather mourned, that he who hath committed such a deed may be taken
away from the midst of you?" For whom were they to "mourn?" Of course,
for one dead. To whom were they to mourn? Of course, to the Lord, in
order that in some way or other he may be "taken away from the midst of
them;" not, of course in order that he may be put outside the Church.
For a thing would not have been requested of God which came within the
official province of the president (of the Church); but (what would be
requested of Him was), that through death—not only this death common
to all, but one specially appropriate to that very flesh which was
already a corpse, a tomb leprous with irremediable uncleanness—he
might more fully (than by simple excommunication) incur the penalty of
being "taken away" from the Church. And accordingly, in so far as it
was meantime possible for him to be "taken away," he "adjudged such an
one to be surrendered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh." For
it followed that flesh which was being cast forth to the devil should
be accursed, in order that it might be discarded from the sacrament of
blessing, never to return into the camp of the Church.
And thus we see in this place the apostle's severity divided,
against one who was "inflated," and one who was "incestuous:" (we see
the apostle) armed against the one with "a rod," against the other with
a sentence,—a "rod," which he was threatening; a sentence, which he
was executing: the former (we see) still brandishing, the latter
instantaneously hurtling; (the one) wherewith he was rebuking, and (the
other) wherewith he was condemning. And certain it is, that forthwith
thereafter the rebuked one indeed trembled beneath the menace of the
uplifted rod, but the condemned perished under the instant infliction
of the penalty. Immediately the former retreated fearing the blow, the
latter paying the penalty. When a letter of the self-same apostle is
sent a second time to the Corinthians, pardon is granted plainly; but
it is uncertain to whom, because neither person nor cause is
advertised. I will compare the cases with the senses. If the
"incestuous" man is set before us, on the same platform will be the
"inflated" man too. Surely the analogy, of the case is sufficiently
maintained, when the "inflated" is rebuked, but the "incestuous" is
condemned. To the "inflated" pardon is granted, but after rebuke; to
the "incestuous" no pardon seems to have been granted, as under
condemnation. If it was to him for whom it was feared that he might be
"devoured by mourning" that pardon was being granted, the "rebuked" one
was still in danger of being devoured, losing heart on account of the
commination, and mourning on account of the rebuke. The "condemned"
one, however, was permanently accounted as already devoured, alike by
his fault and by his sentence; (accounted, that is, as one) who had not
to "mourn," but to suffer that which, before suffering it, he might
have mourned. If the reason why pardon was being granted was "lest we
should be defrauded by Satan," the loss against which precaution was
being taken had to do with that which had not yet perished. No
precaution is taken in the use of a thing finally despatched, but in
the case of a thing still safe. But the condemned one —condemned, too,
to the possession of Satan—had already perished from the Church at the
moment when he had committed such a deed, not to say withal at the
moment of being forsworn by the Church itself. How should (the Church)
fear to suffer a fraudulent loss of him whom she had already lost on
his ereption, and whom, after condemnation, she could not have held?
Lastly, to what will it be becoming for a judge to grant indulgence? to
that which by a formal pronouncement he has decisively settled, or to
that which by an interlocutory sentence he has left in suspense? And,
of course, (I am speaking of) that judge who is not wont "to rebuild
those things which he has destroyed, lest he be held a
transgressor."(1)
Come, now, if he had not "wholly saddened" so many persons in the
first Epistle; if he had "rebuked" none, had "terrified"(2) none; if he
had "smitten" the incestuous man alone; if, for his cause, he had sent
none into panic, had struck (no) "inflated" one with
consternation,—would it not be better for you to suspect, and more
believing for you to argue, that rather some one far different had been
in the same predicament at that time among the Corinthians; so that,
rebuked, and terrified, and already wounded with mourning, he
therefore—the moderate nature of his fault permitting it—subsequently
received pardon, than that you should interpret that (pardon as
granted) to an incestuous fornicator? For this you had been bound to
read, even if not in an Epistle, yet impressed upon the very character
of the apostle, by (his) modesty more clearly than by the
instrumentality of a pen: not to steep, to wit, Paul, the "apostle of
Christ,"(3) the "teacher of the nations in faith and verity,"(4) the
"vessel of election,"(5) the founder of Churches, the censor of
discipline, (in the guilt of) levity so great as that he should either
have condemned rashly one whom he was presently to absolve, or else
rashly absolved one whom he had not rashly condemned, albeit on the
ground of that fornication which is the result of simple immodesty, not
to say on the ground of incestuous nuptials and impious voluptuousness
and parricidal lust,—(lust) which he had refused to compare even with
(the lusts of) the nations, for fear it should be set down to the
account of custom; (lust) on which he would sit in judgment though
absent, for fear the culprit should "gain the time;"(1) (lust) which he
had condemned after calling to his aid even "the Lord's power," for
fear the sentence should seem human. Therefore he has trifled both with
his own "spirit,"(2) and with "the angel of the Church,"(3) and with
"the power of the Lord," if he rescinded what by their counsel he had
formally pronounced.
If you hammer out the sequel of that Epistle to illustrate the
meaning of the apostle, neither will that sequel be found to square
with the obliteration of incest; lest even here the apostle be put to
the blush by the incongruity of his later meanings. For what kind (of
hypothesis) is it, that the very moment after making a largess of
restoration to the privileges of ecclesiastical peace to an incestuous
fornicator, he should forthwith have proceeded to accumulate
exhortations about turning away from impurities, about pruning away of
blemishes, about exhortations to deeds of sanctity, as if he had
decreed nothing of a contrary nature just before? Compare, in short,
(and see) whether it be his province to say, "Wherefore, having this
ministration, in accordance with (the fact) that we have obtained
mercy, we faint not; but renounce the secret things of disgrace,"(4)
who has just released from condemnation one manifestly convicted of,
not "disgrace" merely, but crime too: whether it be Ms province, again,
to excuse a conspicuous immodesty, who, among the counts of his own
labours, after" straits and pressures," after" fasts and vigils," has
named "chastity" also:(5) whether it be, once more, his province to
receive back into communion whatsoever reprobates, who writes, "For
what society (is there) between righteousness and iniquity? what
communion, moreover, between light and darkness? what consonance
between Christ and Belial? or what part for a believer with an
unbeliever? or what agreement between the temple of God and idols?"
Will he not deserve to hear constantly(the reply); "And in what manner
do you make a separation between things which, in the former part of
your Epistle, by restitution of the incestuous one, you have joined?
For by his restoration to concorporate unity with the Church,
righteousness is made to have fellowship with iniquity, darkness has
communion with light, Belial is consonant with Christ, and believer
shares the sacraments with unbeliever. And idols may see to themselves:
the very vitiator of the temple of God is converted into a temple of
God: for here, too, he sap, 'For ye are a temple of the living God. For
He saith, That I will dwell in you, and will walk in (you), and will be
their God, and they shall be to Me a people. Wherefore depart from the
midst of them, be separate, and touch not the unclean.'(6) This (thread
of discourse) also you spin out, O apostle, when at the very moment you
yourself are offering your hand to so huge a whirlpool of impurities;
nay, you superadd yet further, 'Having therefore this promise, beloved,
cleanse we ourselves out from every defilement of flesh and spirit,
perfecting chastity in God's fear.'"(7) I pray you, had he who fixes
such (exhortations) in our minds been recalling some notorious
fornicator into the Church? or is his reason for writing it, to prevent
himself from appearing to you in the present day to have so recalled
him? These (words of his) will be in duty bound alike to serve as a
prescriptive rule for the foregone, and a prejudgment for the
following, (parts of the Epistle). For in saying, toward the end of the
Epistle, "Lest, when I shall have come, God humble me, and I bewail
many of those who have formerly sinned, and have not repented of the
impurity which they have committed, the fornication, and the
vileness,"(8) he did not, of course, determine that they were to be
received hack (by him into the Church) if they should have entered (the
path of) repentance, whom he was to find in the Church, but that they
were to be bewailed, and indubitably ejected, that they might lose (the
benefit of) repentance. And, besides, it is not congruous that he, who
had above asserted that there was no communion between light and
darkness, righteousness and iniquity, should in this place have been
indicating somewhat touching communion. But all such are ignorant of
the apostle as understand anything in a sense contrary to the nature
and design of the man himself, contrary to the norm and rule of his
docrines; so as to presume that he, a teacher of every sanctity, even
by his own example, an execrator and expiator of every impurity, and
universally consistent with himself in these points, restored
ecclesiastical privileges to an incestuous person sooner than to some
more mild offender.
Necessary it is, therefore, that the (character of the) apostle
should be continuously pointed out to them; whom I will maintain to be
such in the second of Corinthians withal, as I know (him to be) in all
his letters. (He it is) who even in the first (Epistle) was the first
of all (the apostles) to dedicate the temple of God: "Know ye not that
ye are the temple of God, and that in you the Lord dwells?"(1)—who
likewise, for the consecrating and purifying (of) that temple, wrote
the law pertaining to the temple-keepers: "If any shall have marred the
temple of God, him shall God mar; for the temple of God is holy, which
(temple) are ye."(2) Come, now; who in the world has (ever)
redintegrated one who has been "marred" by God (that is, delivered to
Satan with a view to destruction of the flesh), after subjoining for
that reason, "Let none seduce himself;"(3) that is, let none presume
that one "marred" by God can possibly be redintegrated anew? Just as,
again, among all other crimes—nay, even before all others—when
affirming that "adulterers, and fornicators, and effeminates, and
co-habitors with males, will not attain the kingdom of God," he
premised, "Do not err"(4)—to wit, if you think they will attain it.
But to them from whom "the kingdom" is taken away, of course the life
which exists in the kingdom is not permitted either. Moreover, by
superadding, "But such indeed ye have been; but ye have received
ablution, but ye have been sanctified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and in the Spirit of our God;"(5) in as far as he puts on the
paid side of the account such sins before baptism, in so far after
baptism he determines them irremissible, if it is true, (as it is),
that they are not allowed to "receive ablution" anew. Recognise, too,
in what follows, Paul(in the character of) an immoveable column of
discipline and its rules: "Meats for the belly, and the belly for
meats: God maketh a full end both of the one and of the others; but the
body (is) not for fornication, but for God:"(6) for "Let Us make man,"
said God, "(conformable) to Our image and likeness." "And God made man;
(conformable) to the image and likeness of God made He him."(7) "The
Lord for the body:" yes; for "the Word was made flesh."(8) "Moreover,
God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us through His own
power;"(9) on account, to wit, of the union of our body with Him. And
accordingly, "Know ye not your bodies(to be) members of Christ?"
because Christ, too, is God's temple. "Overturn this temple, and I will
in three days' space resuscitate it."(10) "Taking away the members of
Christ, shall I make (them) members of an harlot? Know ye not, that
whoever is agglutinated to an harlot is made one body? (for the two
shall be (made) into one flesh): but whoever is agglutinated to the
Lord is one spirit? Flee fornication."(11) If revocable by pardon, in
what sense am I to flee it, to turn adulterer anew? I shall gain
nothing if I do flee it: I shall be "one body," to which by communion I
shall be agglutinated. "Every sin which a human being may have
committed is extraneous to the body; but whoever fornicateth, sinneth
against his own body."(12) And, for fear you should fly to that
statement for a licence to fornication, on the ground that you will be
sinning against a thing which is yours, not the Lord's, he takes you
away from yourself, and awards you, according to his previous
disposition, to Christ: "And ye are not your own;" immediately opposing
(thereto), "for bought ye are with a price"—the blood, to wit, of the
Lord:(13) "glorify and extol the Lord in your body."(14) See whether he
who gives this injunction be likely to have pardoned one who has
disgraced the Lord, and who has cast Him down from (the empire of) his
body, and this indeed through incest. If you wish to imbibe to the
utmost all knowledge of the apostle, in order to understand with what
an axe of censorship he lops, and eradicates, and extirpates, every
forest of lusts, for fear of permitting aught to regain strength and
sprout again; behold him desiring souls to keep a fast from the
legitimate fruit of nature—the apple, I mean, of marriage: "But with
regard to what ye wrote, good it is for a man to have no contact with a
woman; but, on account of fornication, let each one have his own wife:
let husband to wife, and wife to husband, render what is due."(15) Who
but must know that it was against his will that he relaxed the bond of
this "good," in order to prevent fornication? But if he either has
granted, or does grant, indulgence to fornication, of course he has
frustrated the design of his own remedy. and will be bound forthwith to
put the curb upon the nuptials of continence, if the fornication for
the sake of which those nuptials are permitted shall cease to be
feared. For (a fornication) which has indulgence granted it will not be
feared. And yet he professes that he has granted the use of marriage
"by way of indulgence, not of command."(16) For he "wills" all to be on
a level with himself. But when things lawful are (only) granted by way
of indulgence, who hope for things unlawful? "To the unmarried" also,
"and widows," he says, "It is good, by his example, to persevere" (in
their present state); "but if they were too weak, to marry; because it
is preferable to marry than to bum." (1) With what fires, I pray you,
is it preferable to "burn"—(the fires) of concupiscence, or (the
fires) of penalty? Nay, but if fornication is pardonable, it will not
be an object of concupiscence. But it is more (the manner) of an
apostle to take forethought for the fires of penalty. Wherefore, if it
is penalty which "burns," it follows that fornication, which penalty
awaits, is not pardonable. Meantime withal, while prohibiting divorce,
he uses the Lord's precept against adultery as an instrument for
providing, in place of divorce, either perseverance in widowhood, or
else a reconciliation of peace: inasmuch as "whoever shall have
dismissed a wife (for any cause) except the cause of adultery, maketh
her commit adultery; and he who marrieth one dismissed by a husband
committeth adultery."(2) What powerful remedies does the Holy Spirit
furnish, to prevent, to wit, the commission anew of that which He wills
not should anew be pardoned!
Now, if in all cases he says it is best for a man thus to be;
"Thou art joined to a wife seek not loosing" (that you may give no
occasion to adultery); "thou art loosed from a wife, seek not a wife,"
that you may reserve an opportunity for yourself: "but withal, if thou
shalt have married a wife, and if a virgin shall have married, she
sinneth not; pressure, however, of the flesh such shall have,"—even
here he is granting a permission by way of "sparing them."(3) On the
other hand, he lays it down that "the time is wound up," in order that
even "they who have wives may be as if they had them not." "For the
fashion of this world is passing away,"—(this world) no longer, to
wit, requiting (the command), "Grow and multiply." Thus he wills us to
pass our life "without anxiety," because "the unmarried care about the
Lord, how they may please God; the married, however, muse about the
world,(4) how they may please their spouse."(5) Thus he pronounces that
the "preserver of a virgin" doeth" better" than her "giver in
marriage."(6) Thus, too, he discriminatingly judges her to be more
blessed, who, after losing her husband subsequently to her entrance
into the faith, lovingly embraces the opportunity of widowhood.(7) Thus
he commends as Divine all these counsels of continence: "I think,"(8)
he says, "I too have the Spirit of God."(9)
Who is this your most audacious asserter of all immodesty,
plainly a "most faithful" advocate of the adulterous, and fornicators,
and incestuous, in whose honour he has undertaken this cause against
the Holy Spirit, so that he recites a false testimony from (the
writings of) His apostle? No such indulgence granted Paul, who
endeavours to obliterate "necessity of the flesh" wholly from (the list
of) even honourable pretexts (for marriage unions). He does grant
"indulgence," I allow;—not to adulteries, but to nuptials. He does
"spare," I allow;—marriages, not harlotries. He tries to avoid giving
pardon even to nature, for fear he may flatter guilt. He is studious to
put restraints upon the union which is heir to blessing, for fear that
which is heir to curse be excused. This (one possibility) was left
him—to purge the flesh from (natural) dregs, for (cleanse it) from
(foul) stains he cannot. But this is the usual way with perverse and
ignorant heretics; yes, and by this time even with Psychics
universally: to arm themselves with the opportune support of some one
ambiguous passage, in opposition to the disciplined host of sentences
of the entire document:
Challenge me to front the apostolic line of battle; look at his
Epistles: they all keep guard in defence of modesty, of chastity, of
sanctity; they all aim their missiles against the interests of luxury,
and lasciviousness, and lust. What, in short, does he write to the
Thessalonians withal? "For our consolation(10) (originated) not of
seduction, nor of impurity:" and, "This is the will of God, your
sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; that each one know
how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the lust
of concupiscence, as (do) the nations which are ignorant of God."(11)
What do the Galatians read? "Manifest are the works of the flesh." What
are these? Among the first he has set "fornication, impurity,
lasciviousness:" "(concerning) which I foretell you, as I have
foretold, that whoever do such acts are not to attain by inheritance
the kingdom of God."(12) The Romans, moreover,—what learning is more
impressed upon them than that there must be no dereliction of the Lord
after believing? "What, then, say we? Do we persevere in sin, in order
that grace may superabound? Far be it. We, who are dead to sin, how
shall we live in it still? Are ye ignorant that we who have been
baptized in Christ have been baptized into His death? Buried with Him,
then, we have been, through the baptism into the death, in order that,
as Christ hath risen again from the dead, so we too may walk in newness
of life. For if we have been buried together in the likeness of His
death, why, we shall be (in that) of (His) resurrection too; knowing
this, that our old man hath been crucified together with Him. But if we
died with Christ, we believe that we shall live, too, with Him; knowing
that Christ, having been raised from the dead, no more dieth, (that)
death no more hath domination over Him. For in that He died to sin, He
died once for all; but in that He liveth, to God He liveth. Thus, too,
repute ye yourselves dead indeed to sin, but living to God through
Christ Jesus."(1) Therefore, Christ being once for all dead, none who,
subsequently to Christ, has died, can live again to sin, and especially
to so heinous a sin. Else, if fornication and adultery may by
possibility be anew admissible, Christ withal will be able anew to die.
Moreover, the apostle is urgent in prohibiting" sin from reigning in
our mortal body,"(2) whose "infirmity of the flesh" he knew. "For as ye
have tendered your members to servile impurity and iniquity, so too now
tender them servants to righteousness unto holiness." For even if he
has affirmed that "good dwelleth not in his flesh,"(3) yet (he means)
according to "the law of the letter,"(4) in which he "was:" but
according to "the law of the Spirit,"(5) to which he annexes us, he
frees us from the "infirmity of the flesh." "For the law," he says, "of
the Spirit of life hath manumitted thee from the law of sin and of
death."(6) For albeit he may appear to be partly disputing from the
standpoint of Judaism, yet it is to us that he is directing the
integrity and plenitude of the rules of discipline,—(us), for whose
sake soever, labouring (as we were) in the law, "God hath sent, through
flesh, His own Son, in similitude of flesh of sin; and, became of sin,
hath condemned sin in the flesh; in order that the righteousness of the
law," he says, "might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to
flesh, but according to (the) Spirit. For they who walk according to
flesh are sensible as to those things which are the flesh's, and they
who (walk) according to (the) Spirit those which (are) the Spirit's."
(7) Moreover, he has affirmed the "sense of the flesh" to be "death;"
(8) hence too, "enmity," and enmity toward God;(9) and that "they who
are in the flesh," that is, in the sense of the flesh, "cannot please
God:"(10) and, "If ye live according to flesh," he says, "it will come
to pass that ye die."(11)But what do we understand "the sense of the
flesh" and "the life of the flesh"(to mean), except whatever "it shames
(one) to pronounce?"(12) for the other (works) of the flesh even an
apostle would have named.(13) Similarly, too, (when writing) to the
Ephesians, while recalling past (deeds), he warns (them) concerning the
future: "In which we too had our conversation, doing the concupiscences
and pleasures of the flesh."(14) Branding, in fine, such as had denied
themselves—Christians, to wit—on the score of having "delivered
themselves up to the working of every impunity,"(15) "But ye," he says,
"not so have learnt Christ." And again he says thus: "Let him who was
wont to steal, steal no more."(16) But, similarly, let him who was wont
to commit adultery hitherto, not commit adultery; and he who was wont
to fornicate hitherto, not fornicate: for he would have added these
(admonitions) too, had he been in the habit of extending pardon to
such, or at all willed it to be extended—(he) who, not willing
pollution to be contracted even by a word, says, "Let no base speech
proceed out of your mouth."(17) Again: "But let fornication and every
impurity not be even named among you, as becometh saints,"(18)—so far
is it from being excused,—"knowing this, that every fornicator or
impure (person) hath not God's kingdom. Let none seduce you with empty
words: on this account cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of
unbelief."(19) Who "seduces with empty words" but he who states in a
public harangue that adultery is remissible? not seeing into the fact
that its very foundations have been dug out by the apostle, when he
puts restraints upon drunkennesses and revellings, as withal here: "And
be not inebriated with wine, in which is voluptuousness."(20) He
demonstrates, too, to the Colossians what "members" they are to
"mortify" upon earth: "fornication, impurity, lust, evil
concupiscence," and "base talk."(21) Yield up, by this time, to so many
and such sentences, the one (passage) to which you cling. Paucity is
cast into the shade by multitude, doubt by certainty, obscurity by
plainness. Even if, for certain, the apostle had granted pardon 94
of fornication to that Corinthian, it would be another instance of his once for all contravening his own practice to meet the requirement of the time. He circumcised Timotheus alone, and yet did away with circumcision.(1)
"But these (passages)," says (our opponent), "will pertain to the
interdiction of all immodesty, and the enforcing of all modesty, yet
without prejudice to the place of pardon; which (pardon) is not
forthwith quite denied when sins are condemned, since the time of the
pardon is concurrent with the condemnation which it excludes."
This piece of shrewdness on the part of the Psychics was
(naturally) sequent; and accordingly we have reserved for this place
the cautions which, even in the times of antiquity, were openly taken
with a view to the refusing of ecclesiastical communion to cases of
this kind.
For even in the Proverbs, which we call Paroemiae, Solomon
specially (treats) of the adulterer (as being) nowhere admissible to
expiation. "But the adulterer," he says, "through indigence of senses
acquireth perdition to his own soul; sustaineth dolors and disgraces.
His ignominy, moreover, shall not be wiped away for the age. For
indignation, full of jealousy, will not spare the man in the day of
judgment."(2) If you think this said about a heathen, at all events
about believers you have already heard (it said) through Isaiah:" Go
out from the midst of them, and be separate, and touch not the
impure."(3) You have at the very outset of the Psalms, "Blessed the man
who hath not gone astray in the counsel of the impious, nor stood in
the way of sinners, and sat in the state-chair of pestilence;"(4) whose
voice,(5) withal,(is heard) subsequently: "I have not sat with the
conclave of vanity; and with them who act iniquitously will I not
enter"—this (has to do with "the church" of such as act ill—"and with
the impious will I not sit;"(6) and, "I will wash with the innocent
mine hands, and Thine altar will I surround, Lord"(7)—as being" a host
in himself"—inasmuch as indeed "With an holy (man), holy Thou wilt be;
and with an innocent man, innocent Thou wilt be; and with an elect,
elect Thou wilt be; and with a perverse, perverse Thou wilt be."(8) And
elsewhere: "But to the sinner saith the Lord, Why expoundest thou my
righteous acts, and takest up my testament through thy mouth? If thou
sawest a thief, thou rannest with him; and with adulterers thy portion
thou madest."(9) Deriving his instructions, therefore, from hence, the
apostle too says: "I wrote to you in the Epistle, not to be mingled up
with fornicators: not, of course, with the fornicators of this
world"—and so forth—" else it behoved you to go out from the world.
But now I write to you, if any is named a brother among you, (being) a
fornicator, or an idolater" (for what so intimately joined?), "or a
defrauder" (for what so near akin?), and so on, "with such to take no
food even,"(10) not to say the Eucharist: because, to wit, withal "a
little leaven spoileth the flavour of the whole lump."(11) Again to
Timotheus: "Lay hands on no one hastily, nor communicate with others'
sins."(12) Again to the Ephesians: "Be not, then, partners with them:
for ye were at one time darkness."(13) And yet more earnestly:
"Communicate not with the unfruitful works of darkness; nay rather
withal convict them. For (the things) which are done by them in secrecy
it is disgraceful even to utter."(14) What more disgraceful than
immodesties? If, moreover, even from a "brother" who "walketh idly"(15)
he warns the Thessalonians to withdraw themselves, how much more withal
from a fornicator! For these are the deliberate judgments of Christ,
"loving the Church," who "hath delivered Him self up for her, that He
may sanctify her (purifying her utterly by the layer of water) in the
word, that He may present the Church to Him self glorious, not having
stain or wrinkle"—of course after the laver—"but (that) she may be
holy and without reproach;"(16) thereafter, to wit, being "without
wrinkle" as a virgin, "without stain" (of fornication) as a spouse,
"without disgrace" (of vileness), as having been "utterly purified."
What if, even here, you should conceive to reply that communion
is indeed denied to sinners, very especially such as had been "polluted
by the flesh,"(17) but (only) for the present; to be restored, to wit,
as the result of penitential suing: in accordance with that clemency of
God which prefers a sinner's repentance to his death?(18)—for this
fundamental ground of your opinion must be universally attacked. We
say, accordingly, that if it had been competent to the Divine clemency
to have guaranteed the demonstration of itself even to the
post-baptismally lapsed, the apostle would have said thus: "Communicate
not with the works of darkness, unless they shall have repented;" and,
"With such take not food even, unless after they shall have wiped, with
rolling at their feet, the shoes of the brethren;" and, "Him who shall
have marred the temple of God, shall God mar, unless he shall have
shaken off from his head in the church the ashes of all hearths." For
it had been his duty, in the case of those things which he had
condemned, to have equally determined the extent to which he had (and
that conditionally) condemned them—whether he had condemned them with
a temporary and conditional, and not a perpetual, seventy. However,
since in all Epistles he both prohibits such a character, (so sinning)
after believing, from being admitted (to the society of believers);
and, if admitted, detrudes him from communion, without hope of any
condition or time; he sides more with our opinion, pointing out that
the repentance which the Lord prefers is that which before believing,
before baptism, is esteemed better than the death of the sinner,—(the
sinner, I say,) once for all to be washed through the grace of Christ,
who once for all has suffered death for our sins. For this (rule), even
in his own person, the apostle has laid down. For, when affirming that
Christ came for this end, that He might save sinners,(1) of whom
himself had been the "first," what does he add? "And I obtained mercy,
because I did (so) ignorantly in unbelief."(2) Thus that clemency of
God, preferring the repentance of a sinner to his death, looks at such
as are ignorant still, and still unbelieving, for the sake of whose
liberation Christ came; not (at such) as already know God, and have
learnt the sacrament of the faith. But if the clemency of God is
applicable to such as are ignorant still, and unbelieving, of course it
follows that repentance invites clemency to itself; without prejudice
to that species of repentance after believing, which either, for
lighter sins, will be able to obtain pardon from the bishop, or else,
for greater and irremissible ones, from God only.(3)
But how far (are we to treat) of Paul; since even John appears to
give some secret countenance to the opposite side? as if in the
Apocalypse he has manifestly assigned to fornication the auxiliary aid
of repentance, where, to the angel of the Thyatirenes, the Spirit sends
a message that He "hath against him that he kept (in communion) the
woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophet, and teacheth,(4) and
seduceth my servants unto fornicating and eating of idolsacrifice. And
I gave her bounteously a space of time, that she might enter upon
repentance; nor is she willing to enter upon it on the count of
fornication. Behold, I will give her into a bed, and her adulterers
with herself into greatest pressure, unless they shall have repented of
her works."(5) I am content with the fact that, between apostles, there
is a common agreement in rules of faith and of discipline. For,
"Whether (it be) I," says (Paul), "or they, thus we preach."(6)
Accordingly, it is material to the interest of the whole sacrament to
believe nothing conceded by John, which has been taffy refused by Paul.
This harmony of the Holy Spirit whoever observes, shall by Him be
conducted into His meanings. For (the angel of the Thyatirene Church)
was secretly introducing into the Church, and urging justly to
repentance, an heretical woman, who had taken upon herself to teach
what she had learnt from the Nicolaitans. For who has a doubt that an
heretic, deceived by (a spurious baptismal) rite, upon discovering his
mischance, and expiating it by repentance, both attains pardon and is
restored to the bosom of the Church? Whence even among us, as being on
a par with an heathen, nay even more than heathen, an heretic likewise,
(such an one) is purged through the baptism of truth from each
character,(7) and admitted (to the Church). Or else, if you are certain
that that woman had, after a living faith, subsequently expired, and
turned heretic, in order that you may claim pardon as the result of
repentance, not as it were for an heretical, but as it were for a
believing, sinner: let her, I grant, repent; but with the view of
ceasing from adultery, not however in the prospect of restoration (to
Church-fellowship) as well. For this will be a repentance which we,
too, acknowledge to be due much more (than you do); but which we
reserve, for pardon, to God.(8)
In short, this Apocalypse, in its later passages, has assigned
"the infamous and fornicators," as well as "the cowardly, and
unbelieving, and murderers, and sorcerers, and idolaters," who have
been guilty of any such crime while professing the faith, to "the lake
of fire,"(9) without any conditional condemnation. For it will not
appear to savour of (a bearing upon) heathens, since it has (just)
pronounced with regard to believers, "They who shall have conquered
shall have this inheritance; and I will be to them a God, and they to
me for sons;" and so has subjoined: "But to the cowardly, and
unbelieving, and infamous, and fornicators, and murderers, and
sorcerers, and idolaters, (shall be) a share in the lake of fire and
sulphur, which (lake) is the second death." Thus, too, again "Blessed
they who act according to the precepts, that they may have power over
the tree of life and over the gates, for entering into the holy city.
Dogs, sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, out!"(1)—of course, such as
do not act according to the precepts; for to be sent out is the portion
of those who have been within. Moreover "What have I to do to judge
them who are without?"(2) had preceded (the sentences now in question).
From the Epistle also of John they forthwith cull (a proof). It
is said: "The blood of His Son purifieth us utterly from every sin."(3)
Always then, and in every form, we will sin, if always and from every
sin He utterly purifies us; or else, if not always, not again after
believing; and if not from sin, not again from fornication. But what is
the point whence (John) has started? He had predicated "God" to be
"Light," and that "darkness is not in Him," and that "we lie if we say
that we have communion with Him, and walk in darkness."(4) "If,
however," he sap, "we walk in the light, we shall have communion with
Him, and the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord purifieth us utterly from
every sin."(5) Walking, then, in the light, do we sin? and, sinning in
the light, shall we be utterly purified? By no means. For he who sins
is not in the light, but in darkness. Whence, too, he points out the
mode in which we shall be utterly purified from sin—(by) "walking in
the light," in which sin cannot be committed. Accordingly, the sense in
which he says we "are utterly purified" is, not in so far as we sin,
but in so far as we do not sin. For, "walking in the light," but not
having communion with darkness, we shall act as they that are "utterly
purified;" sin not being quite laid down, but not being wittingly
committed. For this is the virtue of the Lord's blood, that such as it
has already purified from sin, and thenceforward has set "in the
light," it renders thenceforward pure, if they shall continue to
persevere walking in the light. "But he subjoins," you say, "'If we say
that we have not sin, we are seducing ourselves, and the truth is not
in us. If we confess our sins, faithful and just is He to remit them to
us, and utterly purify us from every unrighteousness.'"(6) Does he say
"from impurity?" (No): or else, if that is so, then (He "utterly
purifies" us) from "idolatry" too. But there is a difference in the
sense. For see yet again: "If we say," he says, "that we have not
sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."(7) All the more
fully: "Little children, these things have I written to you, lest ye
sin; and if ye shall have sinned, an Advocate we have with God the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and, He is the propitiation for our
sins."(8) "According to these words," you say, "it will be admitted
both that we sin, and that we have pardon." What, then, will become (of
your theory), when, proceeding (with the Epistle), I find something
different? For he affirms that we do not sin at all; and to this end he
treats at large, that he may make no such concession; setting forth
that sins have been once for all deleted by Christ, not subsequently to
obtain pardon; in which statement the sense requires us (to apply the
statement) to an admonition to chastity. "Every one," he says, "who
hath this hope, maketh himself chaste, because He too is chaste. Every
one who doeth sin, doeth withal iniquity;(9) and sin is iniquity.(10)
And ye know that He hath been manifested to take away
sins"—henceforth, of course, to be no more incurred, if it is true,
(as it is,) that he subjoins, "Every one who abideth in Him sinneth
not; every one who sinneth neither hath seen nor knoweth Him. Little
children, let none seduce you. Every one who doeth righteousness is
righteous, as He withal is righteous. He who doeth sin is of the devil,
inasmuch as the devil sinneth from the beginning. For unto this end was
manifested the Son of God, to undo the works of the devil:" for He has
"undone" them withal, by setting man free through baptism, the
"handwriting of death" having been "made a gift of" to him:" and
accordingly, "he who is being born of God doeth not sin, because the
seed of God abideth in him; and he cannot sin, because he hath been
born of God. Herein are manifest the sons of God and the sons of the
devil."(12) Wherein? except it be (thus): the former by not sinning,
from the time that they were born from God; the latter by sinning,
because they are from the devil, just as if they never were born from
God? But if he says, "He who is not righteous is not of God,"(13) how
shall he who is not modest again become (a son) of God, who has already
ceased to be so?
"It is therefore nearly equivalent to saying that John has
forgotten himself; asserting, in the former part of his Epistle, that
we are not without sin, but now prescribing that we do not sin at all:
and in the one case flattering us somewhat with hope of pardon, but in
the other as- setting with all stringency, that whoever may have sinned
are no sons of God." But away with (the thought): for not even we
ourselves forget the distinction between sins, which was the
starting-point of our digression. And (a right distinction it was); for
John has here sanctioned it; in that there are some sins of daily
committal, to which we all are liable: for who will be free from the
accident of either being angry unjustly, and retaining his anger beyond
sunset;(1) or else even using manual violence or else carelessly
speaking evil; or else rashly swearing; or else forfeiting his plighted
word or else lying, from bashfulness or "necessity?" In businesses, in
official duties, in trade, in food, in sight, in hearing, by how great
temptations are we plied! So that, if there were no pardon for such
sins as these, salvation would be unattainable to any. Of these, then,
there will be pardon, through the successful Suppliant of the Father,
Christ. But there are, too, the contraries of these; as the graver and
destructive ones, such as are incapable of pardon—murder, idolatry,
fraud, apostasy, blasphemy; (and), of come, too, adultery and
fornication; and if there be any other "violation of the temple of
God." For these Christ will no more be the successful Header: these
will not at all be incurred by one who has been born of God, who will
cease to be the son of God if he do incur them.
Thus John's rule of diversity will be established; arranging as
he does a distinction of sins, while he now admits and now denies that
the sons of God sin. For (in making these assertions) he was looking
forward to the final clause of his letter, and for that (final clause)
he was laying his preliminary bases; intending to say, in the end, more
manifestly: "If any knoweth his brother to be sinning a sin not unto
death, he shall make request, and the Lord shall give life to him who
sinneth not unto death. For there is a sin unto death: not concerning
that do I say that one should make request."(2) He, too, (as I have
been), was mindful that Jeremiah had been prohibited by God to
deprecate (Him) on behalf of a people which was committing mortal sins.
"Every unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin unto death.(3) But we
know that every one who hath been born of God sinneth not"(4)—to wit,
the sin which is unto death. Thus there is no course left for you, but
either to deny that adultery and fornication are mortal sins; or else
to confess them irremissible, for which it is not permitted even to
make successful intercession.
The discipline, therefore, of the apostles properly (so called),
indeed, instructs and determinately directs, as a principal point, the
overseer of all sanctity as regards the temple of God to the universal
eradication of every sacrilegious outrage upon modesty, without any
mention of restoration. I wish, however, redundantly to superadd the
testimony likewise of one particular comrade of the apostles,—(a
testimony) aptly suited for confirming, by most proximate right, the
discipline of his masters. For there is extant withal an Epistle to the
Hebrews under the name of Barnabas—a man sufficiently accredited by
God, as being one whom Paul has stationed next to himself in the
uninterrupted observance of abstinence: "Or else, I alone and Barnabas,
have not we the power of working?"(5) And, of course, the Episfie of
Barnabas is more generally received among the Churches than that
apocryphal "Shepherd" of adulterers. Warning, accordingly, the
disciples to omit all first principles, and strive rather after
perfection, and not lay again the foundations of repentance from the
works of the dead, he says: "For impossible it is that they who have
once been illuminated, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have
participated in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the word of God and
found it sweet, when they shall—their age already setting—have fallen
away, should be again recalled unto repentance, crucifying again for
themselves the Son of God, and dishonouring Him."(6) "For the earth
which hath drunk the rain often descending upon it, and hath borne
grass apt for them on whose account it is tilled withal, attaineth
God's blessing; but if it bring forth thorns, it is reprobate, and
nighest to cursing, whose end is (doomed) unto utter burning."(7) He
who learnt this from aposties, and taught it with apostles, never knew
of any "second repentance" promised by apostles to the adulterer and
fornicator.
For excellently was he wont to interpret the law, and keep its
figures even in (the dispensation of) the Truth itself. It was with a
reference, in short, to this species of discipline that the caution was
taken in the case of the leper: "But if the speckled appearance shall
have become efflorescent over the skin, and shall have covered the
whole skin from the head even unto the feet through all the visible
surface, then the priest, when he shall have seen, shall utterly
cleanse him: since he hath wholly turned into white he is clean. But on
the day that there shall have been seen in such an one quick colour, he
is defiled.", (The Law) would have the man who is wholly turned from
the pristine habit of the flesh to the whiteness of faith—which
(faith) is esteemed a defect and blemish in (the eyes of) the
world(2)—and is wholly made new, to be understood to be "clean;" as
being no longer "speckled," no longer dappled with the pristine and the
new (intermixt). If, however, after the reversal (of the sentence of
uncleanness), ought of the old nature shall have revived with its
tendencies, that which was beginning to be thought utterly dead to sin
in his flesh must again be judged unclean, and must no more be expiated
by the priest. Thus adultery, sprouting again from the pristine stock,
and wholly blemishing the unity of the new colour from which it had
been excluded, is a defect that admits of no cleansing. Again, in the
case of a house: if any spots and cavities in the party-walls had been
reported to the priest, before he entered to inspect that house he bids
all (its contents) be taken away from it; thus the belongings of the
house would not be unclean. Then the priest, if, upon entering, he had
found greenish or reddish cavities, and their appearance to the sight
deeper down within the body of the party-wall, was to go out to the
gate, and separate the house for a period within seven days. Then, upon
returning on the seventh day, if he should have perceived the taint to
have become diffused in the party-walls, he was to order those stones
in which the taint of the leprosy had been to be extracted and cast
away outside the city into an unclean place; and other stones, polished
and sound, to be taken and replaced in the stead of the first, and the
house to be plastered with other mortar.(3) For, in coming to the High
Priest of the Father—Christ—all impediments must first be taken away,
in the space of a week, that the house which remains, the flesh and the
soul, may be clean; and when the Word of God has entered it, and has
found "stains of red and green," forthwith must the deadly and
sanguinary passions "be extracted" and "cast away" out of doors—for
the Apocalypse wtthal has set "death" upon a "green horse," but a
"warrior" upon a "red"(4)—and in their stead must be under-strewn
stones polished and apt for conjunction, and firm,—such as are made
(by God) into (sons) of Abraham,(5)—that thus the man may be fit for
God. But if, after the recovery and reformation, the priest again
perceived in the same house ought of the pristine disorders and
blemishes, he pronounced it unclean, and bade the timbers, and the
stones, and all the structure of it, to be pulled down, and cast away
into an unclean place.(6) This will be the man —flesh and soul—who,
subsequently to reformation, after baptism and the entrance of the
priests, again resumes the scabs and stains of the flesh, and "is case
away outside the city into an unclean place,"—" surrendered," to wit,
"to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,"—and is no more rebuilt in
the Church after his ruin. So, too, with regard to lying with a female
slave, who had been betrothed to an husband, but not yet redeemed, not
yet set free: "provision," says (the Law), shall be made for her, and
she shall not die, because she was not yet manumitted for him for whom
she was being kept.(7) For flesh not yet manumitted to Christ, for whom
it was being kept,(8) used to be contaminated with impunity: so now,
after manumission, it no more receives pardon.
If the apostles understood these (figurative meanings of the Law)
better, of course they were more careful (with regard to them than even
apostolic men). But I will descend even to this point of contest now,
making a separation between the doctrine of apostles and their power.
Discipline governs a man, power sets a seal upon him; apart from the
fact that power is the Spirit, but the Spirit is God. What, moreover,
used (the Spirit) to teach? That there must be no communicating with
the works of darkness.(9) Observe what He bids. Who, moreover, was able
to forgive sins? This is His alone prerogative: for "who remitteth sins
but God alone?"(10) and, of course, (who but He can remit) mortal
sins, such as have been committed against Himself,(11) and against His
temple? For, as far as you are concerned, such as are chargeable with
offence against you personally, you are commanded, in the person of
Peter, to forgive even seventy times sevenfold.(12) And so, if it were
agreed that even the blessed apostles had granted any such indulgence
(to any crime) the pardon of which (comes) from God, not from man, it
would be competent (for them) to have done so, not in the exercise of
discipline, but of power. For they both raised the dead,(13) which God
alone (can do), and restored the debilitated to their integrity,(14)
which none but Christ (can do); nay, they infflicted plagues too, which
Christ would not do. For it did not beseem Him to be severe who had
come to suffer. Smitten were both Ananias(1) and Elymas(2)—Ananias
with death, Elymas with blindness—in order that by this very fact it
might be proved that Christ had had the power of doing even such
(miracles). So, too, had the prophets (of old) granted to the repentant
the pardon of murder, and therewith of adultery, inasmuch as they gave,
at the same time, manifest proofs of seventy.(3) Exhibit therefore even
now to me,(4) apostolic sir, prophetic evidences, that I may recognise
your divine virtue, and vindicate to yourself the power of remitting
such sins! If, however, you have had the functions of discipline alone
allotted you, and (the duty) of presiding not imperially, but
ministerially;(5) who or how great are you, that you should grant
indulgence, who, by exhibiting neither the prophetic nor the apostolic
character, lack that virtue whose property it is to indulge?
"But," you say, "the Church has the power of forgiving sins."
This I acknowledge and adjudge more (than you; I) who have the
Paraclete Himself in the persons of the new prophets, saying, "The
Church has the power to forgive sins; but I will not do it, lest they
commit others withal." "What if a pseudo-prophetic spirit has made that
declaration?" Nay, but it would have been more the part of a subverter
on the one hand to commend himself on the score of clemency, and on the
other to influence all others to sin. Or if, again, (the
pseudo-prophetic spirit) has been eager to affect this (sentiment) in
accordance with "the Spirit of truth,"(6) it follows that "the Spirit
of truth" has indeed the power of indulgently granting pardon to
fornicators, but wills not to do it if it involve evil to the majority.
I now inquire into your opinion, (to see) from what source you
usurp this right to "the Church."
If, because the Lord has said to Peter, "Upon this rock will I
build My Church,"(7) "to thee have I given the keys of the heavenly
kingdom;" (8) or, "Whatsoever thou shale have bound or loosed in earth,
shall be bound or loosed in the heavens,"(9) you therefore presume that
the power of binding and loosing has derived to you, that is, to every
Church akin to Peter, what sort of man are you, subverting and wholly
changing the manifest intention of the Lord, conferring (as that
intention did) this (gift) personally upon Peter? "On thee," He says,
"will I build My Church; "and," I will give to thee the keys," not to
the Church; and, "Whatsoever thou shall have based or bound," not what
they shall have loosed or bound. For so withal the result teaches. In
(Peter) himself the Church was reared; that is, through (Peter)
himself; (Peter) himself essayed the key; you see what (key): "Men of
Israel, let what I say sink into your ears: Jesus the Nazarene, a man
destined by God for you," and so forth.(10) (Peter) himself, therefore,
was the first to unbar, in Christ's baptism, the entrance to the
heavenly kingdom, in which (kingdom) are "loosed" the sins that were
beforetime "bound;" and those which have not been "loosed" are "bound,"
in accordance with true salvation; and Ananias he "bound" with the bond
of death, and the weak in his feet he "absolved" from his defect of
health. Moreover, in that dispute about the observance or
non-observance of the Law, Peter was the first of all to be endued with
the Spirit, and, after making preface touching the calling of the
nations, to say, "And now why are ye tempting the Lord, concerning the
imposition upon the brethren of a yoke which neither we nor our fathers
were able to support? But however, through the grace of Jesus we
believe that we shall be saved m the same way as they."(11) This
sentence both "loosed" those parts of the law which were abandoned, and
"bound" those which were reserved. Hence the power of loosing and of
binding committed to Peter had nothing to do with the capital sins of
believers; and if the Lord had given him a precept that he must grant
pardon to a brother sinning against him even "seventy times sevenfold,"
of course He would have commanded him to "bind"—that is, to
"retain"(12)—nothing subsequently, unless perchance such (sins) as one
may have committed against the Lord, not against a brother. For the
forgiveness of (sins) committed in the case of a man is a prejudgment
against the remission of sins against God.
What, now, (has this to do) with the Church, and) your (church),
indeed, Psychic? For, in accordance with the person of Peter, it is to
spiritual men that this power will correspondently appertain, either to
an apostle or else to a prophet. For the very Church itself is,
properly and principally, the Spirit Himself, in whom is the Trinity of
the One Divinity—Father, Son. and Holy Spirit.(13) (The Spirit)
combines that Church which the Lord has made to consist in "three." And
thus, from that time forward,(14) every number (of persons) who may
have combined together into this faith is accounted "a Church," from
the Author and Consecrator (of 100
the Church). And accordingly "the Church," it is true, will forgive sins: but (it will be) the Church of the Spirit, by means of a spiritual man; not the Church which consists of a number of bishops. For the right and arbitrament is the Lord's, not the servant's; God's Himself, not the priest's.
But you go so far as to lavish this "power" upon martyrs withal!
No sooner has any one, acting on a preconceived arrangement, put on the
bonds—(bonds), moreover, which, in the nominal custody now in
vogue,(1) are soft ones—than adulterers beset him, fornicators gain
access to him; instantly prayers echo around him; instantly pools of
tears (from the eyes) of all the polluted surround him; nor are there
any who are more diligent in purchasing entrance into the prison than
they who have lost(the fellowship of) the Church! Men and women are
violated in the darkness with which the habitual indulgence of lusts
has plainly familiarized them; and they seek peace at the hands of
those who are risking their own! Others betake them to the mines, and
return, in the character of communicants, from thence, where by this
time another "martyrdom" is necessary for sins committed after
"martyrdom." "Well, who on earth and in the flesh is faultless?" What
"martyr" (continues to be) an inhabitant of the world(2) supplicating?
pence in hand? subject to physician and usurer? Suppose, now, (your
"martyr") beneath the glaive, with head already steadily poised;
suppose him on the cross, with body already outstretched; suppose him
at the stake, with the lion already let loose; suppose him on the axle,
with the fire already heaped; in the very certainty, I say, and
possession of martyrdom: who permits man to condone (offences) which
are to be reserved for God, by whom those (offfences) have been
condemned without discharge, which not even apostles (so far as I
know)—martyrs withal themselves—have judged condonable? In short,
Paul had already "fought with beasts at Ephesus," when he decreed
"destruction" to the incestuous person.(3) Let it suffice to the martyr
to have purged his own sins: it is the part of ingratitude or of pride
to lavish upon others also what one has obtained at a high price. (4)
Who has redeemed another's death by his own, but the Son of God alone?
For even in His very passion He set the robber free.(5) For to this end
had He come, that, being Himself pure from sin,(6) and in all respects
holy,(7) He might undergo death on behalf of sinners.(8) Similarly, you
who emulate Him in condoning sins, if you yourself have done no sin,
plainly suffer in my stead. If, however, you are a sinner, how will the
oil of your puny torch be able to suffice for you and for me?(9)
I have, even now, a test whereby to prove (the presence of)
Christ (in you). If Christ is in the martyr for this reason, that the
martyr may absolve adulterers and fornicators, let Him tell publicly
the secrets of the heart, that He may thus concede (pardon to) sins;
and He is Christ. For thus it was that the Lord Jesus Christ showed His
power: "Why think ye evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say
to the paralytic, Thy sins are remitted thee; or, Rise and walk?
Therefore, that ye may know the Son of man to have the power upon earth
of remitting sins, I say to thee, paralytic, Rise, and walk."(10) If
the Lord set so much store by the proof of His power as to reveal
thoughts, and so impart health by His command, lest He should not be
believed to have the power of remitting sins; it is not lawful for me
to believe the same power (to reside) in any one, whoever he be,
without the same proofs. In the act, however, of urgently entreating
from a martyr pardon for adulterers and fornicators, you yourself
confess that crimes of that nature are not to be washed away except by
the martyrdom of the criminal himself, while you presume (they can be
washed away) by another's If this is so, then martyrdom will be another
baptism. For "I have withal," saith He, "another baptism."(11) Whence,
too, it was that there flowed out of the wound in the Lord's side water
and blood, the materials of either baptism? I ought, then, by the first
baptism too to (have the fight of) setting another free if I can by the
second: and we must necessarily force upon the mind (of our opponents
this conclusion): Whatever authority, whatever reason, restores
ecclesiastical peace to the adulterer and fornicator, the same will be
bound to come to the aid of the murderer and idolater in their
repentance,—at all events, of the apostate, and of course of him whom,
in the battle of his confession, after hard struggling with torments,
savagery has overthrown. Besides, it were unworthy of God and of His
mercy, who prefers the repentance of a sinner to his death, that they
should have easier return into (the bosom of) the Church who have
fallen in heat of passion, than they who have fallen in hand-to- hand
combat.(1) Indignation urges us to speak. Contaminated bodies you will
recall rather than gory ones! Which repentance is more pitiable—that
which prostrates tickled flesh, or lacerated? Which pardon is, in all
causes, more justly concessible—that which a voluntary, or that which
an involuntary, sinner implores? No one is compelled with his will to
apostatize; no one against his will commits fornication. Lust is
exposed to no violence, except itself: it knows no coercion whatever.
Apostasy, on the contrary, what ingenuities of butchery and tribes of
penal inflictions enforce! Which has more truly apostatized—he who has
lost Christ amid agonies, or (he who has done so) amid delights? he who
when losing Him grieved, or he who when losing Him sported? And yet
those scars graven on the Christian combatant—scars, of course,
enviable in the eyes of Christ, because they yearned after Conquest,
and thus also glorious, because failing to conquer they yielded;
(scars) after which even the devil himself yet sighs; (scars) with an
infelicity of their own, but a chaste one, with a repentance that
mourns, but blushes not, to the Lord for pardon—will anew be remitted
to such, because their apostasy was expiable! In their case alone is
the "flesh weak." Nay, no flesh so strong as that which crushes out the
Spirit!
ELUCIDATIONS.
I.
(The Shepherd of Hermas, p. 85.)
Here, and in chap. xx. below, Tertullian's rabid utterances
against the Shepherd may be balanced by what he had said, less
unreasonably, in his better mood.(1) Now he refers to the Shepherd's
(ii. 1)(2) view of pardon, even to adulterers. But surely it might be
objected even more plausibly against "the Shepherd," whom he prefers,
in common with all Christians, as see John viii. 1-11, which I take to
be canonical Scripture. A curious question is suggested by what he says
of the figure of the Good Shepherd portrayed on the chalice: Is this
irony, as if the figure so familiar from illustrations of the catacombs
must be meant for the Shepherd of Hermas? Regarding all pictures as
idolatrous, he may intend to intimate that adultery (=idolatry) was
thus symbolized.
II.
(Clasping the knees of all, p. 86.)
Here is a portrait of the early penitential discipline
sufficiently terrible, and it conforms to the apostolic pictures of the
same. "Tell it unto the Church," says our Lord (St. Matt. xviii. 17).
In 1 Cor. v. 4 the apostle ("present in spirit") gives judgment, but
the whole Church is "gathered together." In St. James v. 16 the
"confession to one another" seems to refer to this public discipline,
as also the prayer for healing enjoined on one another. St. Chrysostom,
however, reflecting the discipline of his day, in which great changes
were made, says, on Matt. xviii. 17, unless it be a gloss, "Dic
Ecclesuoe id est Proesidibus = proedreuousin ." (Tom. vii. p. 536, ed.
Migne.)
III.
(Remedial discipline, p. 87.)
Powerfully as Tertullian states his view of this apostolic
"delivering unto Satan" as for final perdition, it is not to be
gainsaid that(1 Cor. v. 5) the object was salvation and hope, "that the
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Thus, the power of
Satan to inflict bodily suffering (Job ii. 6), when divinely permitted,
is recognised under the Gospel (Luke xiii. 16; 2 Cor, xii. 7). The
remedial mercy of trials and sufferings may be inferred when
providentially occurring.
IV.
(Personally upon Peter, p. 99.)
See what has been said before. But note our author (now writing
against the Church, and as a Montanist) has no idea that the personal
prerogative of St. Peter had descended to any bishop. More when we come
to Cyprian, and see vol. iii. p. 630, this series.