Chap. XII. - Of the Verdict of the Apostles, Assembled in Council, upon the Subject of Adultery.
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: (Act_15:28, Act_15:29) 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 murder: 86 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, (Act_15:30 and Act_16:4) and the counsel embodied therein, will cease (only) with the word.26 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.
Chap. XIII. - Of St. Paul, and the Person Whom He Urges the Corinthians to Forgive.
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,” (1Co_5:5.) - 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.” (2Co_2:5-11) What (reference) is understood here to the fornicator? what to the contaminator of his father’s bed? (Cf. Gen_49:4) 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 in 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? (Cf. Mat_25:32, Mat_25:33) 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 87 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.” (2Th_3:14, 2Th_3:15) 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 (Cf. 1Co_5:2) - 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,” (1Ti_1:20) as he writes to his Timotheus. “But withal himself says that ‘a stake (2Co_7:7-10) 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 Satan” 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.”27 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,28 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,” (1Ti_1:19) 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, 88 that is, he subjoins: “Know ye not, that a little leaven spoileth the savour of the whole lump?”29 And yet incestuous fornication was not a little, but a large, leaven.
Chap. XIV. - The Same Subject Continued.
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,” (Cf. 2Th_3:6, 2Th_3:11.) 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.”30 “For neither did I judge to know anything among you but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” (1Co_2:2) 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?” (1Co_9:1) 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.” (Cf. 1Co_9:15) “Know ye not that we are to judge angels?” (1Co_6:3) 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!”31 and, “If any thinks himself to know, he knoweth not yet how it behaves him to know I”32 Is he not even then “smiting some one’s face,” (2Co_11:20) 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?”33 Is he not withal “smiting them upon the mouth,” (Cf. Act_23:2) (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.”34 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 some 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 89 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.” (Cf. Gal_2:18)
Come, now, if he had not “wholly saddened” so many persons in the first Epistle; if he had “rebuked” none, had “terrified” (Cf. 2Co_10:9) 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,”35 the “teacher of the nations in faith and verity,” (1Ti_2:7) the “vessel of election,” (Act_9:15) 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 90 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;” (Cf. Dan_2:8) (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,” (Cf. 1Co_5:3) and with “the angel of the Church,” (Cf. Rev_1:20, Rev_2:1, Rev_2:8, Rev_2:12, Rev_2:18, Rev_3:1, Rev_3:7, Rev_3:14) and with “the power of the Lord,” if he rescinded what by their counsel he had formally pronounced.
Chap. XV. - The Same Subject Continued.
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,” (2Co_4:1, 2Co_4:2.) who has just released from condemnation one manifestly convicted of, not “disgrace” merely, but crime too: whether it be his 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: (2Co_6:5, 2Co_6:6.) 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 says, ‘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.’ (2Co_6:16-18) 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.’”36 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,”37 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 doctrines; 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.
Chap. XVI. - General Consistency of the Apostle.
Necessary it is, therefore, that the (character of the) apostle should be continuously pointed 91 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?”38 - 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.”39 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;” (1Co_3:18.) 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” (1Co_6:9, 1Co_6:10) - 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;”40 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:” (1Co_6:13.) 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.” (Cf. Gen_1:26, Gen_1:27) “The Lord for the body:” yes; for “the Word was made flesh.” (Joh_1:14) “Moreover, God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us through His own power;” (1Co_6:14) 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.” (Joh_2:19) “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.” (1Co_6:15-17) 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.” (1Co_6:18) 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:41 “glorify and extol the Lord in your body.”42 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.” (1Co_7:1-3) 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.” (1Co_7:6) For he “wills” all to be on a level with himself. But when things 92 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.” (1Co_7:8, 1Co_7:9) 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.” (Mat_5:32) 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.”43 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,44 how they may please their spouse.”45 Thus he pronounces that the “preserver of a virgin” doeth” better” than her “giver in marriage.” (1Co_7:38) 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. (1Co_7:39, 1Co_7:40.) Thus he commends as Divine all these counsels of continence: “I think,”46 he says, “I too have the Spirit of God.”47
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.
Chap. XVII. - Consistency of the Apostle in His Other Epistles.
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 consolation48 (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.” (1Th_4:3-5) 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.” (Gal_5:19-21) 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 93 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.” (Rom_6:1-11) 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,” (Rom_6:12) 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,” (Rom_7:18) yet (he means) according to “the law of the letter,”49 in which he “was:” but according to “the law of the Spirit,”50 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.”51 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.” (Rom_8:3-5) Moreover, he has affirmed the “sense of the flesh” to be “death;” (Rom_8:6) hence too, “enmity,” and enmity toward God; (Rom_8:7) and that “they who are in the flesh,” that is, in the sense of the flesh, “cannot please God:” (Rom_8:8) and, “If ye live according to flesh,” he says, “it will come to pass that ye die.” (Rom_8:12) 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?” (Eph_5:12) for the other (works) of the flesh even an apostle would have named.52 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.”53 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,” (Eph_4:17-20) “But ye,” he says, “not so have learnt Christ.” And again he says thus: “Let him who was wont to steal, steal no more.” (Eph_4:28) 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.”54 Again: “But let fornication and every impurity not be even named among you, as becometh saints,” (Eph_5:3) - 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.”55 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.” (Eph_5:18) He demonstrates, too, to the Colossians what “members” they are to “mortify” upon earth: “fornication, impurity, lust, evil concupiscence,” and “base talk.” (Col_3:5, Col_3:8) 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.56
Chap. XVIII. - Answer to a Psychical Objection.
“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.” (Pro_6:32-34) 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.”57 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;” (Psalm 1:1, LXX) whose voice,58 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;” (Psa_26:4, Psa_26:5 (Psalm 25:4, 5 LXX)) and, “I will wash with the innocent mine hands, and Thine altar will I surround, Lord”59 - 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.”60 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.” (Psa_50:16, Psa_50:18 (Psalm 49:16, 18 LXX)) 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,” (1Co_5:9-11) not to say the Eucharist: because, to wit, withal “a little leaven spoileth the flavour of the whole lump.” (1Co_5:6) Again to Timotheus: “Lay hands on no one hastily, nor communicate with others’ sins.” (1Ti_5:22) Again to the Ephesians: “Be not, then, partners with them: for ye were at one time darkness.”61 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.” (Eph_5:11, Eph_5:12.) What more disgraceful than immodesties? If, moreover, even from a “brother” who “walketh idly” (2Th_3:6) 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 laver 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;” (Eph_5:26, Eph_5:27) 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,”62 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?63 - 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 shall95 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, (1Ti_1:15) of whom himself had been the “first,” what does he add? “And I obtained mercy, because I did (so) ignorantly in unbelief.” (1Ti_1:13, 1Ti_1:16) 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.64
Chap. XIX. - Objections from the Revelation and the First Epistle of St. John Refuted.
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,65 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.” (Rev_2:18, Rev_2:20-22) 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.” (1Co_15:11) 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 misch
