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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CHURCH FATHERS: On Modesty (Tertullian)</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0407.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Featuring the Church Fathers, Catholic Encyclopedia, Summa Theologica and more."> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="fathers" id="0407.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../fathers/index.html">Fathers of the Church</a> > On Modesty (Tertullian)</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='fathers-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>On Modesty</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <h2>Chapter 1. God Just as Well as Merciful; Accordingly, Mercy Must Not Be Indiscriminate.</h2> <p>Modesty, the flower of manners, the <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a> of our bodies, the <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> of the sexes, the integrity of the blood, the guarantee of our race, the basis of <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a>, 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.</p> <p>But as the conquering power of things <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> is on the increase — which is the characteristic of the last times — 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 disarmed are the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a>. 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 <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believed</a> to be; and he is held to be chaste <em>enough</em> who has not been <em>too</em> chaste. But let the world's modesty see to itself, together with the world 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 <a href="../cathen/05543b.htm">existence</a> profits not? It is <em>our own</em> <a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">good</a> things whose position is now sinking; it is the system of <em><a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a></em> modesty which is being shaken to its foundation — (<a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> modesty), which derives its all from heaven; its nature, <q>through the laver of regeneration;</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/07207a.htm">eternal fire</a> or kingdom. </p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>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 <em>Pontifex Maximus</em> — that is, the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> — issues an edict: <q>I remit, to such as have discharged (the requirements of) repentance, the <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> both of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and of fornication.</q> O edict, on which cannot be inscribed, <q>Good deed!</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/15458a.htm">virgin</a>! Far, far from Christ's <a href="../cathen/02537c.htm">betrothed</a> be such a proclamation! She, the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, 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 <q>den of <a href="../cathen/14564b.htm">robbers</a>,</q> than of adulterers and fornicators.</p> <p>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 <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. As if it were not easier to <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">err</a> with the majority, when it is in the company of the few that <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">error</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> had its stages of growth; through which stages the apostle, too, passed. <q>When I was a child,</q> he says, <q>as a child I spoke, as a child I understood; but when I became a <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a>, those (things) which had been the child's I abandoned:</q> so <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truly</a> did he turn away from his early opinions: nor did he <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> by becoming an emulator not of ancestral but of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> traditions, wishing even the precision of them who advised the retention of <a href="../cathen/03777a.htm">circumcision</a>. And would that the same <a href="../cathen/05793a.htm">fate</a> might befall those, too, who obtruncate the pure and <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> Name; a discipline to which heathendom itself bears such emphatic <a href="../cathen/15677a.htm">witness</a>, that it strives to punish that discipline in the <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> of our <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">females</a> rather by defilements of the flesh than tortures; wishing to wrest from them that which they hold dearer than life! But now this <a href="../cathen/06585a.htm">glory</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> of succumbing to <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication their reason for marrying as often as they please — since <q>better it is to marry than to burn.</q> No <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> it is for continence sake that incontinence is necessary — the <q>burning</q> will be extinguished by <q>fires!</q> 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, <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication will not be ranked at the same time among the moderate and among the greatest <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, 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 <em>us</em> precaution is thus also taken against the greatest, or, (if you will), <em>highest</em> (crimes, viz.,) in that it is not permitted, after believing, to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> even a second marriage, differentiated though it be, to be sure, from the work of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication by the nuptial and dotal tablets: and accordingly, with the utmost strictness, we excommunicate digamists, as bringing <a href="../cathen/08001a.htm">infamy</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> no ampler return than the publication of their disgrace.</p> <h2>Chapter 2. God Just as Well as Merciful; Accordingly, Mercy Must Not Be Indiscriminate.</h2> <p><q>But,</q> say they, <q><a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is 'good,' and 'most good,' and 'pitiful-hearted,' and 'a pitier,' and 'abundant in pitiful-heartedness,' which He holds 'dearer than all <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifice</a>,' 'not thinking the sinner's death of so much worth as his repentance', 'a Saviour of all <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a>, most of all of <a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">believers</a>.' And so it will be becoming for 'the sons of God?' too to be 'pitiful-hearted' and 'peacemakers;' 'giving in their turn just as Christ withal has given to us;' 'not judging, that we be not judged.' For 'to his own lord a man stands or falls; who are you, to judge another's servant?' 'Remit, and remission shall be made to you.'</q> 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 <q>severity</q> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and provoke our own constancy? Because, albeit God is by nature good, still He is <q>just</q> too. For, from the <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a> of the case, just as He <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knows</a> how to <q>heal,</q> so does He withal <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> how to <q>smite;</q> <q>making peace,</q> but withal <q>creating <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evils</a>;</q> preferring repentance, but withal commanding Jeremiah not to <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">pray</a> for the aversion of ills on behalf of the <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sinful</a> People —<q>since, if they shall have fasted,</q> says He, <q>I will not listen to their entreaty.</q> And again: <q>And <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">pray</a> not unto (me) on behalf of the People, and request not on their behalf in <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a> and supplication, since I will not listen to (them) in the time wherein they shall have invoked me, in the time of their affliction.</q> And further, above, the same preferrer of mercy above <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifice</a> (says): <q>And <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">pray</a> not 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)</q> — of course when they sue for mercy, when out of repentance they weep and fast, and when they offer their self-affliction to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. For God is <q>jealous,</q> and is One who is not contemptuously derided — derided, namely, by such as flatter His goodness — and who, albeit <q>patient,</q> yet threatens, through Isaiah, an end of (His) patience. <q>I have held my peace; shall I withal always hold my peace and endure? I have been quiet as (a <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a>) in birth-throes; I will arise, and will make (them) to grow arid.</q> For <q>a fire shall proceed before His face, and shall utterly burn His enemies;</q> striking down not the body only, but the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> too, into <a href="../cathen/07207a.htm">hell</a>. Besides, the Lord Himself demonstrates the manner in which He threatens such as judge: <q>For with what judgment you judge, judgment shall be given on you.</q> Thus He has not prohibited judging, but taught (how to do it). Whence the apostle withal judges, and that in a case of fornication, that <q>such a man must be surrendered to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a> for the destruction of the flesh;</q> chiding them likewise because <q>brethren</q> were not <q>judged at the bar of the <a href="../cathen/04171a.htm">saints</a>:</q> for he goes on and says, <q>To what (purpose is it) for me to judge those who are without?</q> <q>But you remit, in order that remission may be granted you by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>.</q> The <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> which are (thus) cleansed are such as a man may have committed against his brother, not against God. We profess, in short, in our <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a>, that we will grant remission to our debtors; 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 <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>. 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 <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> 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 <a href="../bible/index.html">Scriptures</a>, on one hand retaining, on the other remitting, <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>; but John, too, will teach us: <q>If any <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knows</a> his brother to be sinning a <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> not unto death, he shall request, and life shall be given to him;</q> because he is not <q>sinning unto death,</q> this will be remissible. <q>(There) is a <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> unto death; not for this do I say that any is to request</q> — this will be irremissible. So, where there is the efficacious power of <q>making request,</q> there likewise is that of remission: where there is no (efficacious power) of <q>making request,</q> there equally is none of remission either. According to this difference of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, the condition of repentance also is discriminated. There will be a condition which may possibly obtain pardon — in the case, namely, of a remissible <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>: there will be a condition which can by no means obtain it — in the case, namely, of an irremissible <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. And it remains to examine specially, with regard to the position of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication, to which class of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> they ought to be assigned.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h2>Chapter 3. An Objection Anticipated Before the Discussion Above Promised is Commenced.</h2> <p>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. <q>Why, if,</q> say they, <q>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 <em>all</em> repentance <em>is</em> to be practised. Therefore let (us allow that) <em>all</em> 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.</q> 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 <em>they</em> are concerned, at whose hands (repentance) obtains <em>man's</em> peace, (it is in vain). As regards <em>us</em>, however, who remember that the Lord alone concedes (the pardon of) <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, (and of course of <em>mortal</em> ones,) it will <em>not</em> 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 <em>from God alone</em>, that it believes not that <em>man's</em> peace is adequate to its guilt, that as far as regards the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a> 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.</p> <h2>Chapter 4. Adultery and Fornication Synonymous.</h2> <p>Having defined the distinction (between the kinds) of repentance, we are by this time, then, able to return to the assessment of the <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>— whether they be such as can obtain pardon at the hand of men. In the first place, (as for the fact) that we call <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> likewise fornication, usage requires (us so to do). <q>Faith,</q> 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 <q>adulterium,</q> and if <q>stuprum,</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/15617c.htm">widow</a>, provided it be not his own <q>female;</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a>, makes himself guilty of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication. Accordingly, among us, secret connections as well — connections, that is, not first professed in presence of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>— run risk of being judged akin to <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/11534a.htm">passions</a>— impious both toward the bodies and toward the sexes — beyond the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> of nature, we banish not only from the threshold, but from all shelter of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, because they are not <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, but monstrosities.</p> <h2>Chapter 5. Of the Prohibition of Adultery in the Decalogue.</h2> <p>Of how deep guilt, then, <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>— 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 <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, (as it is), that after interdicting the superstitious service of alien gods, and the making of <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idols</a> themselves, after commending (to religious observance) the veneration of the <a href="../cathen/13287b.htm">Sabbath</a>, after commanding a religious regard toward <a href="../cathen/11478c.htm">parents</a> second (only to that) toward <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, (that Law) laid, as the next substratum in strengthening and fortifying such counts, no other precept than <q>You shall not commit <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>.</q> For after spiritual <a href="../cathen/03637d.htm">chastity</a> and <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a> followed corporeal integrity. And this (the Law) accordingly fortified, by immediately prohibiting its foe, <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>. Understand, consequently, what kind of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> (that must be), the repression of which (the Law) ordained next to (that of) <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a>. Nothing that is a second is remote from the first; nothing is so close to the first as the second. That which results from the first is (in a sense) another first. And so <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> is bordering on <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a>. For <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a> withal, often cast as a reproach upon the People under the name of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication, will be alike conjoined therewith in <a href="../cathen/05793a.htm">fate</a> as in following — will be alike co-heir therewith in condemnation as in co-ordination. Yet further: premising <q>You shall not commit <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>,</q> (the Law) adjoins, <q>You shall not kill.</q> It honoured <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>, of course, to which it gives the precedence over <a href="../cathen/07441a.htm">murder</a>, in the very fore-front of the most <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> law, among the primary counts of the celestial edict, marking it with the inscription of the very principal <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>. From its place you may discern the measure, from its rank the station, from its neighbourhood the merit, of each thing. Even <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>: on the one side, Idolatry goes before and leads the way; on the other, Murder follows in company. Worthily, without <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a>, 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: <q>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; <a href="../cathen/15677a.htm">witness</a> 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, <a href="../cathen/15677a.htm">witness</a> nowadays the poisoners, <a href="../cathen/15677a.htm">witness</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> there is no <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> without us. Wherever the business of the unclean spirit is, there are idolatries; wherever a <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a>, by being polluted, is slain, there too is <a href="../cathen/07441a.htm">murder</a>. Therefore the remedial aids of repentance will not be suitable to <em>them</em>, or else they will likewise be to <em>us</em>. We either detain Adultery, or else follow her.</q> These words the <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> themselves do speak. If the <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a> they make their circuits; with the self-same knees they supplicate; the self-same mother they invoke. What are you doing, gentlest and humanest Discipline? Either to <em>all</em> these will it be your duty so to be, for <q>blessed are the peacemakers;</q> or else, if not to <em>all</em>, it will be your duty to range yourself on our side. Do you 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 <q>an accepting of person:</q> the more pitiable repentances you have left (unpitied) behind!</p> <h2>Chapter 6. Examples of Such Offences Under the Old Dispensation No Pattern for the Disciples of the New. But Even the Old Has Examples of Vengeance Upon Such Offences.</h2> <p>Plainly, if you show by what patronages of heavenly precedents and precepts it is that you open to <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> alone — and therein to fornication also — the gate of repentance, at this very line our hostile encounter will immediately cross swords. Yet I must necessarily prescribe you a law, not to stretch out your hand after the old things, not to look backwards: for <q>the old things are passed away,</q> according to Isaiah; and <q>a renewing has been renewed,</q> according to Jeremiah; and <q>forgetful of former things, we are reaching forward,</q> according to the apostle; and <q>the law and the <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophets</a> (were) until John,</q> according to the <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">Lord</a>. For even if we are just now beginning with the Law in demonstrating (the <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a> of) <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>, it is <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justly</a> with that phase of the law which Christ has <q>not dissolved, but fulfilled.</q> For it is the <q>burdens</q> of the law which were <q>until John,</q> not the remedial <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtues</a>. It is the <q>yokes</q> of <q>works</q> that have been rejected, not those of disciplines. <q>Liberty in Christ</q> has done no injury to innocence. The law of <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">piety</a>, <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a>, humanity, <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a>, <a href="../cathen/03637d.htm">chastity</a>, <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justice</a>, mercy, benevolence, modesty, remains in its entirety; in which law <q>blessed (is) the man who shall meditate by day and by night.</q> About that (law) the same David (says) again: <q>The law of the Lord (is) unblameable, converting <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a>; the statutes of the Lord (are) direct, delighting hearts; the precept of the Lord far-shining, enlightening eyes.</q> Thus, too, the apostle: <q>And so the law indeed is <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a>, and the precept <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> and most good</q> — <q>You shall not commit <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>,</q> of course. But he had withal said above: <q>Are we, then, making void the law through <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>? Far be it; but we are establishing the law</q> — forsooth in those (points) which, being even now interdicted by the <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a>, are prohibited by an even more emphatic precept: instead of, <q>You shall not commit <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>,</q> <q>Whoever shall have seen with a view to concupiscence, has already committed <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> in his own heart;</q> and instead of, <q>You shall not kill,</q> <q>Whoever shall have said to his brother, Racha, shall be in danger of <a href="../cathen/07207a.htm">hell</a>.</q> Ask (yourself) whether the law of not committing <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> 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 <em>origin</em> even of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>— that is, concupiscences and wills — no less than the actual <a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">deeds</a>; if the fact that pardon was of old in some cases conceded to <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> is to be a reason why it shall be conceded at the present day. <q>What will be the reward attaching to the restrictions imposed upon the more fully developed discipline of the present day, except that the elder (discipline) may be made the agent for granting indulgence to your prostitution?</q> In that case, you will grant pardon to the idolater too, and to every <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostate</a>, 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; and David, by confession, purged Uriah's slaughter, together with its <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a>— <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>. That done, you will condone incests, too, for <a href="../cathen/09366a.htm">Lot's</a> sake; and fornications combined with incest, for Judah's sake; and base marriages with prostitutes, for Hosea's sake; and not only the frequent repetition of marriage, but its simultaneous plurality, for our fathers' sakes: for, of course, it is meet that there should also be a perfect equality of <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> in regard of <em>all</em> <a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">deeds</a> to which indulgence was in days bygone granted, if on the ground of some pristine precedent pardon is claimed for <em><a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a></em>. 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. But, with an eye to the <a href="../cathen/06585a.htm">glory</a> of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, I prefer to derive (my) discipline from Christ. Grant that the pristine days may have had — if the Psychics please — even a <em>right</em> of (indulging) every immodesty; grant that, before Christ, the flesh may have disported itself, nay, may have <em>perished</em> before its Lord went to seek and bring it back: not yet was it worthy of the gift of <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a>; not yet apt for the office of <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a>. It was still, up to that time, accounted as being <em>in Adam</em>, with its own vicious nature, easily indulging concupiscence after whatever it had seen to be <q>attractive to the sight,</q> and looking back at the lower things, and checking its itching with fig-leaves. Universally inherent was the virus of <a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lust</a>— 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 <a href="../cathen/09328a.htm">Word of God</a> descended into flesh —(flesh) not unsealed even by marriage, — and <q>the <a href="../cathen/09328a.htm">Word</a> was <a href="../cathen/07706b.htm">made flesh</a>,</q> — (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 <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holiness</a>; which was to impart to the waters its own purities — thenceforth, whatever flesh (is) <q>in Christ</q> 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 <q>pure water</q> and a <q>clean Spirit.</q> And, accordingly, why excuse it on the ground of pristine precedent? It did not bear the names of <q>body of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>,</q> of <q>members of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>,</q> of <q>temple of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>,</q> at the time when it used to obtain pardon for <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>. And thus if, from the moment when it changed its condition, and <q>having been <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptized</a> into Christ put on Christ,</q> and was <q>redeemed with a great price</q> — <q>the blood,</q> to wit, <q>of the Lord and Lamb</q> — you take hold of any one precedent (be it precept, or law, or sentence,) of indulgence granted, or to be granted, to <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication — you have likewise at our hands a definition of the time from which the age of the question dates.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h2>Chapter 7. Of the Parables of the Lost Ewe and the Lost Drachma.</h2> <p>You shall have leave to begin with the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a>, where you have the lost ewe re-sought by the Lord, and carried back on His shoulders. 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 <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> or <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/11789b.htm">Pharisees</a> were muttering in indignation at the Lord's admitting to His society <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a> <a href="../cathen/12553d.htm">publicans</a> 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 <em><a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a></em>, about whom the question was then in hand — not about a <em><a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a></em>, who up to that time had no <a href="../cathen/05543b.htm">existence</a>? 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? <q>But a 'sheep' properly means a <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a>, and the Lord's 'flock' is the people of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, and the 'good shepherd' is Christ; and hence in the 'sheep' we must understand a <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> who has erred from the Church's 'flock.'</q> In that case, you make the Lord to have given no answer to the <a href="../cathen/11789b.htm">Pharisees'</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> are referable to a <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>. Tell me, is not all <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">mankind</a> one flock of God? Is not the same God both Lord and Shepherd of the universal nations? Who more <q>perishes</q> from God than the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>, so long as he <q><a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">errs</a>?</q> Who is more <q>re-sought</q> by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> than the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>, when he is recalled by Christ? In fact, it is among <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a> that this order finds antecedent place; if, that is, <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> are not otherwise made out of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a> than by being first <q>lost,</q> and <q>re-sought</q> by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and <q>carried back</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a> <q>righteous,</q> it does not follow that He shows them to be <em><a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a></em>; dealing as He is with <em><a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a></em>, and at that very moment refuting them, because they were indignant at the hope of the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a>. But in order to express, in opposition to the <a href="../cathen/11789b.htm">Pharisees'</a> <a href="../cathen/08326b.htm">envy</a>, His own <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> and goodwill even in regard of one <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>, He preferred the <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a> of one sinner by repentance to theirs by righteousness; or else, <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">pray</a>, were the <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a> <em>not</em> <q>righteous,</q> and such as <q>had no need of repentance,</q> having, as they had, as pilotages of discipline and instruments of <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a>, <q>the Law and the Prophets?</q> He set them therefore in the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a>— and if not such as they were, yet such as they ought to have been — that they might blush the more when they heard that repentance was necessary to others, and not to themselves.</p> <p>Similarly, the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> of the drachma, as being called forth out of the same subject-matter, we equally interpret with reference to a <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>; albeit it had been <q>lost</q> in a house, as it were in the church; albeit <q>found</q> by aid of a <q>lamp,</q> as it were by aid of God's word. Nay, but this whole world is the one house of all; in which world it is more the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>, who is found in darkness, whom the <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> of God enlightens, than the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a>, who is already in God's light. Finally, it is <em>one</em> <q>straying</q> which is ascribed to the ewe and the drachma: (and this is an evidence in my favour); for if the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> had been composed with a view to a <em><a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a></em> sinner, after the loss of his <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, a <em>second</em> loss and restoration of them would have been noted.</p> <p>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 <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> is one who is already a <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a>; 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 <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication. For although he be said to <q>have perished,</q> there will be the <em>kind</em> of perdition to treat of; inasmuch as the <q>ewe</q> <q>perished</q> not by dying, but by straying; and the <q>drachma</q> not by being destroyed, but by being hidden. In this sense, a thing which is safe may be said to <q>have perished.</q> Therefore the believer, too, <q>perishes,</q> 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 <q>arts of curiosity</q> to sports, to the convivialities of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a> <a href="../cathen/14133a.htm">solemnity</a>, to official exigence, to the ministry of another's <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a>; if he has impaled himself upon some word of ambiguous denial, or else of <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemy</a>. For some such <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a> he has been driven outside the flock; or even himself, perhaps, by <a href="../cathen/01489a.htm">anger</a>, by <a href="../cathen/12405a.htm">pride</a>, 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 <q>perish,</q> unless it persist in remaining outside. You will well interpret the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> by recalling the sinner <em>while he is still living</em>. But, for the adulterer and fornicator, who is there who has not pronounced him to be <em>dead</em> immediately upon commission of the crime? With what face will you restore to the flock one who is dead, on the authority of that <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> which recalls a sheep <em>not</em> dead?</p> <p>Finally, if you are mindful of the <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophets</a>, when they are chiding the shepherds, there is a word — I think it is Ezekiel's: <q>Shepherds, behold, you devour the milk, and clothe you with the fleeces: what is strong you have slain; what is weak you have not tended; what is shattered you have not bound; what has been driven out you have not brought back; what has perished you have not re-sought.</q> Pray, does he withal upbraid them at all concerning that which is <em>dead</em>, 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 <q>perish mortally,</q> or be <q>eaten up,</q> if they are left remaining. <q>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 <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>) there may be some <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> 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, immediately are brought to an end in the same with the <a href="../cathen/07131b.htm">joy</a> of amendment?</q> But of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>; nor does he remain there; nor does he <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a> <a href="../cathen/07131b.htm">joy</a> to the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> which discovers him, but grief; nor does he invite the congratulation of her neighbours, but the fellowship in sadness of the surrounding fraternities.</p> <p>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 <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>, that they cannot possibly apply to the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> guilty of the <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> for the sake of which they are wrested into a forced application to the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> on the opposite side.</p> <h2>Chapter 8. Of the Prodigal Son.</h2> <p>But, however, the majority of interpreters of the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> yourself to have succeeded in skilfully giving vividness to their mutual combination; presently, when each body (of color) and (the various) lights are fully developed, the convicted diversity will expose all the <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">error</a>. In the self-same darkness, accordingly, with regard to the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> light of that comparison which the subject-matter of the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> presents. For they set down, as represented in the two sons, two peoples — the elder the Jewish, the younger the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a>: for they cannot in the sequel arrange for the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> sinner, in the person of the younger son, to obtain pardon, unless in the person of the elder 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 <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> will not be admissible (as represented) by the joint figure of the younger son. For although the Jew withal be called <q>a son,</q> and an <q>elder one,</q> inasmuch as he had priority in adoption; although, too, he <a href="../cathen/08326b.htm">envy</a> the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> the reconciliation of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> the <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">Father</a> — a point which the opposite side most eagerly catches at — still it will be no speech of a Jew to the Father: <q>Behold, in how many years do I serve You, and Your precept have I never transgressed.</q> For when has the Jew <em>not</em> been a transgressor of the law; hearing with the ear, and not hearing; holding in <a href="../cathen/07149b.htm">hatred</a> him who reproves in the gates, and in scorn <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> speech? So, too, it will be no speech of the Father to the Jew: <q>You are always with Me, and all Mine are yours.</q> For the <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a> are pronounced <q><a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostate</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/01489a.htm">anger</a> the Holy One of <a href="../cathen/08193a.htm">Israel</a>.</q> That all things, plainly, were <em>conceded</em> to the Jew, we shall admit; but he has likewise had every more savoury morsel torn from his throat, 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. Seek, therefore, the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> some other as their brother; for the Jew the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> does not admit. Much more aptly would they have matched the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> with the elder, and the Jew with the younger son, <q>according to the analogy of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>,</q> if the order of each people as intimated from Rebecca's womb permitted the inversion: only that (in that case) the concluding paragraph would oppose them; for it will be fitting for the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> to <a href="../cathen/07131b.htm">rejoice</a>, and not to grieve, at the restoration of <a href="../cathen/08193a.htm">Israel</a>, if it be <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, (as it is), that the whole of our hope is intimately united with the remaining expectation of <a href="../cathen/08193a.htm">Israel</a>. Thus, even if some (features in the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a>) 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 be 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 <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> has bidden us (temper it). For we remember (to have seen) actors withal, while accommodating allegorical gestures to their ditties, giving expression to such as are far different from the immediate plot, and scene, and character, and <em>yet with the utmost congruity</em>. But away with extraordinary ingenuity, for it has nothing to do with our subject. Thus <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a>, too, apply the self-same <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> where they list, and exclude them (in other cases)— not where they <em>ought</em>— 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 <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a>. Loosed as they are from the constraints of the rule of <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a>, they have had leisure, of course, to search into and put together those things of which the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> seem (to be <a href="../cathen/14373b.htm">symbolic</a>).</p> <h2>Chapter 9. Certain General Principles of Parabolic Interpretation. These Applied to the Parables Now Under Consideration, Especially to that of the Prodigal Son.</h2> <p>We, however, who do not make the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> the sources whence we devise our subject-matters, but the subject-matters the sources whence we interpret the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a>, do not labour hard, either, to twist all things (into shape) in the exposition, while we take care to avoid all contradictions. Why <q>an hundred sheep?</q> and why, to be sure, <q>ten drachmas?</q> And what is that <q>besom?</q> Necessary it was that He who was desiring to express the extreme pleasure which the <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a> of <em>one</em> sinner gives to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, should name some special <a href="../cathen/12591a.htm">quantity</a> of a numerical whole from which to describe that <q>one</q> had perished. Necessary it was that the style of one engaged in searching for a <q>drachma</q> in a <q>house,</q> should be aptly fitted with the helpful accompaniment of a <q>besom</q> as well as of a <q>lamp.</q> For curious niceties of this kind not only render some things suspected, but, by the subtlety of forced explanations, generally lead away from the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a>. There are, moreover, some points which are just simply introduced with a view to the structure and disposition and texture of the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a>, in order that they may be worked up throughout to the end for which the typical example is being provided. Now, of course the (<a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> of) the two sons will point to the same end as (those of) the drachma and the ewe: for it has the self-same <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a> (to call it forth) as those to which it coheres, and the selfsame <q>muttering,</q> of course, of the <a href="../cathen/11789b.htm">Pharisees</a> at the intercourse between the Lord and <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a>. Or else, if any doubts that in the land of <a href="../cathen/08544a.htm">Judea</a>, subjugated as it had been long since by the hand of Pompey and of Lucullus, the <a href="../cathen/12553d.htm">publicans</a> were <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a>, let him read Deuteronomy: <q>There shall be no tribute-weigher of the sons of <a href="../cathen/08193a.htm">Israel</a>.</q> Nor would the name of <a href="../cathen/12553d.htm">publicans</a> have been so execrable in the eyes of the Lord, unless as being a <q>strange</q> 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 <q>sinners</q> to <q><a href="../cathen/12553d.htm">publicans</a>,</q> it does not follow that he shows them to have been <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a>, albeit some may possibly have been so; but by placing on a par the one <em>genus</em> of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a>— some sinners by office, that is, <a href="../cathen/12553d.htm">publicans</a>; some by nature, that is, not <a href="../cathen/12553d.htm">publicans</a>— he has drawn a distinction between them. Besides, the Lord would not have been censured for partaking of food with <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a>, but with <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a>, from whose board the Jewish discipline excludes (its <a href="../cathen/05029a.htm">disciples</a>). </p> <p>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 <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a>. But the whole system of <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a>, 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 <em><a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a></em> who, after wandering far from his Father, squanders, by living heathenishly, the <q>substance</q> received from God his Father — (the substance), of course, of <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>— (the substance), of course, of the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a>, and (in consequence) of <a href="../cathen/05551b.htm">eternal</a> hope; if, stripped of his mental <q>goods,</q> he has even handed his service over to the prince of the world — who else but the <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">devil</a>?— and by him being appointed over the business of <q>feeding swine</q> — 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 <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemers</a>, and renegades, and every class of <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostates</a>, will by this <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> make satisfaction to the Father; and in this way (it may) rather (be said that) the whole <q>substance</q> of the sacrament is most <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truly</a> wasted away. For who will <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> 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 <em>not</em> to perpetuity? Security in <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> is likewise an appetite for it. Therefore the <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostate</a> withal will recover his former <q>garment,</q> the robe of the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a>; and a renewal of the <q>ring,</q> the sign and seal of <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>; and Christ will again be <q>slaughtered;</q> and he will recline on that couch from which such as are <em>unworthily clad</em> are wont to be lifted by the torturers, and cast away into darkness, — much more such as have been <em>stripped</em>. It is therefore a further step if it is not <em>expedient</em>, (any more than <em>reasonable</em>), that the story of the prodigal son should apply to a <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a>. Wherefore, if the image of a <q>son</q> 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 <q>had perished;</q> <q>a Physician</q> necessary to <q>the sick</q> <q>more than to the whole.</q> This fact He was in the habit both of typifying in <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> and preaching in direct statements. Who among <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a> <q>perishes,</q> who falls from health, but he who <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knows</a> not the Lord? Who is <q>safe and sound,</q> but he who <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knows</a> the Lord? These two classes — <q>brothers</q> by birth — this <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> also will signify. See whether the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a> have in <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> the Father the <q>substance</q> of origin, and wisdom, and natural power of Godward recognition; by means of which power the apostle withal notes that <q>in the wisdom of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, the world through wisdom <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knew</a> not <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>,</q> — (wisdom) which, of course, it had received originally from <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. This (<q>substance</q>), accordingly, he <q>squandered;</q> having been cast by his moral habits far from the Lord, amid the <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">errors</a> and allurements and appetites of the world, where, compelled by hunger after <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a>, he handed himself over to the prince of this age. He set him over <q>swine,</q> to feed that flock familiar to <a href="../cathen/04710a.htm">demons</a>, 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, <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>; he returns to Him when he has been satisfied; he receives again the pristine <q>garment,</q>— the condition, to wit, which <a href="../cathen/01129a.htm">Adam</a> by transgression had lost. The <q>ring</q> also he is then wont to receive for the first time, wherewith, after being interrogated, he publicly seals the agreement of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, and thus thenceforward feeds upon the <q>fatness</q> of the Lord's body — the <a href="../cathen/05572c.htm">Eucharist</a>, to wit. This will be the prodigal son, who never in days bygone was thrifty; who was from the first prodigal, because <em>not</em> from the first a <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a>. Him withal, returning from the world to the Father's embraces, the <a href="../cathen/11789b.htm">Pharisees</a> mourned over, in the <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> of the <q><a href="../cathen/12553d.htm">publicans</a> and sinners.</q> And accordingly to this point alone the elder brother's <a href="../cathen/08326b.htm">envy</a> is adapted: not because the <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a> were innocent, and <a href="../cathen/11181c.htm">obedient</a> to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, but because they envied the nation <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a>; being plainly they who <em>ought</em> to have been <q>ever with</q> the Father. And of course it is immediately over the <em>first</em> calling of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> that the Jew groans, not over his <em>second</em> restoration: for the former reflects its rays even upon the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>; but the latter, which takes place in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">churches</a>, is not <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">known</a> even to the <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a>. I think that I have advanced interpretations more consonant with the subject-matter of the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a>, 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 drachma, and the voluptuousness of the son to the shape of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> sinner, is that they may endow <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> 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, <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication, should be retained inconcessible.</p> <p>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 <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> to other ends (than they were originally intended for), it would be rather to <em><a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrdom</a></em> 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 <em>less</em> wise <em>in</em> the <a href="../bible/index.html">Scriptures</a>, than to be wise <em>against</em> them. We are as much bound to keep the <em>sense</em> of the Lord as His <em>precept</em>. Transgression in interpretation is not lighter than in conversation.</p> <h2>Chapter 10. Repentance More Competent to Heathens Than to Christians.</h2> <p>When, therefore, the yoke which forbade the discussion of these <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> with a view to the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a>, since their <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> are not amenable to it, imputable as they are to <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorance</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> is committed with <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a> and will, where both the fault and the favour are intelligible; that he who mourns, he who prostrates himself, is he who <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knows</a> both what he has lost and what he will recover if he makes to God the offering of his repentance — to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> who, of course, offers that repentance rather to sons than to strangers.</p> <p>Was that, then, the reason why Jonah thought not repentance necessary to the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a> Ninevites, when he tergiversated in the duty of preaching? Or did he rather, foreseeing the mercy of God poured forth even upon strangers, <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, still sinning in <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorance</a>, did the <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophet</a> nearly perish? <span class="stiki" id="note040813"><a href="../bible/jon001.htm">Jonah 1:iv</a></span> except that he suffered a typical example of the Lord's passion, which was to redeem <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a> as well (as others) on their repentance. It is enough for me that even John, when <q>strewing the Lord's ways,</q> was the herald of repentance no less to such as were on military service and to <a href="../cathen/12553d.htm">publicans</a>, than to the sons of <a href="../cathen/01051a.htm">Abraham</a>. The Lord Himself presumed repentance on the part of the Sidonians and Tyrians if they had seen the evidences of His <q><a href="../cathen/10338a.htm">miracles</a>.</q> </p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>Nay, but I will even contend that repentance is <em>more</em> competent to natural sinners than to <a href="../cathen/15506a.htm">voluntary</a>. For he will merit its fruit who has not yet <em>used</em> more than he who has already withal <em>abused</em> it; and remedies will be more effective on their first application than when outworn. No <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> the Lord is <q>kind</q> to <q>the unthankful,</q> rather than to the <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a>! And <q>merciful</q> to the <q>reprobates</q> sooner than to such as have yet had no probation! so that insults offered to His clemency do not rather incur His <em><a href="../cathen/01489a.htm">anger</a></em> than His <em>caresses</em>! 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 <a href="../cathen/06422a.htm">Gentiles</a> while the <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a> make sport of His patience! But what the Psychics mean is this — that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, 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.</p> <p>Come, you rope-walker upon modesty, and <a href="../cathen/03637d.htm">chastity</a>, and every kind of sexual <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a>, who, by the instrumentality of a discipline of this nature remote from the path of <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a>, mount with uncertain footstep upon a most slender thread, balancing flesh with spirit, moderating your animal principle by <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, tempering your eye by <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a>; 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 as it were upon solid ground. For if any wavering of the flesh, any distraction of the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a>, any wandering of the eye, shall chance to shake you down from your equipoise, <q><a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is <a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">good</a>.</q> To His own (children), not to <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a>, He opens His bosom: a second repentance will await you; you will again, from being an adulterer, be a <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a>! These (pleas) you (will urge) to me, most benignant interpreter of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. But I would yield my ground to you, if the scripture of <q>the Shepherd,</q> which is the only one which favours adulterers, had deserved to find a place in the Divine canon; if it had not been <a href="../cathen/07099b.htm">habitually</a> judged by every council of Churches (even of your own) among <a href="../cathen/01601a.htm">apocryphal</a> 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 <q>Shepherd,</q> will play the patron whom you depict upon your (sacramental) chalice, (depict, I say, as) himself withal a prostitutor of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> sacrament, (and hence) worthily both the idol of <a href="../cathen/01274a.htm">drunkenness</a>, and the brize of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> by which the chalice will quickly be followed, (a chalice) from which you sip nothing more readily than (the flavour of) the <q>ewe</q> of (your) second repentance! I, however, imbibe the <a href="../bible/index.html">Scriptures</a> of that Shepherd who cannot be broken. Him John immediately offers me, together with the laver and duty of repentance; (and offers Him as) saying, <q>Bear worthy fruits of repentance: and say not, We have <a href="../cathen/01051a.htm">Abraham</a> (as our) father</q> — for <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a>, to wit, lest they should again take flattering unctions for delinquency from the <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> shown to the fathers — <q>for God is able from these stones to raise sons to <a href="../cathen/01051a.htm">Abraham</a>.</q> Thus it follows that we too (must judge) such as <q><a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> no more</q> (as) <q>bearing worthy fruits of repentance.</q> For what more ripens as the fruit of repentance than the achievement of emendation? But even if <em>pardon</em> is rather the fruit of repentance, even pardon cannot co-exist without the cessation from <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. So is the cessation from <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> the root of pardon, that pardon may be the fruit of repentance.</p> <h2>Chapter 11. From Parables Tertullian Comes to Consider Definite Acts of the Lord.</h2> <p>From the side of its pertinence to the <a href="../cathen/06655b.htm">Gospel</a>, the question of the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> indeed has by this time been disposed of. If, however, the Lord, by His <em><a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">deeds</a></em> withal, issued any such proclamation in favour of sinners; as when He permitted contact even with his own body to the <q><a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a>, a sinner,</q> — 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; — no benefit is hence conferred upon our adversaries, even if it had been to such as were already <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> 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! 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 <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> discipline dates from the renewing of the Testament, 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 <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>; none a <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> before the resumption of Christ to heaven; none <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> before the manifestation of the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a> from heaven, the Determiner of discipline itself.</p> <h2>Chapter 12. Of the Verdict of the Apostles, Assembled in Council, Upon the Subject of Adultery.</h2> <p>Accordingly, these who have received <q>another Paraclete</q> in and through the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> —(a Paraclete) whom, not recognising Him even in His special <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophets</a>, they no longer possess in the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> either — come, now, let them, even from the apostolic instrument, teach us the possibility that the stains of a flesh which after <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> has been repolluted, can by repentance be washed away. Do we not, in the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> also, recognise the form of the Old Law with regard to the demonstration of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/06655b.htm">Gospel</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a>, on the authority of the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a>, send out to those who were already beginning to be gathered to their side out of the nations: <q>It has seemed (good),</q> say they, <q>to the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a>, and from fornications, and from blood: by abstaining from which you act rightly, the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a> carrying you.</q> Sufficient it is, that in this place withal there has been preserved to <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication the post of their own <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a> between <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a> and murder: for the interdict upon <q>blood</q> we shall understand to be (an interdict) much more upon <em><a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a></em> blood. Well, then, in what light do the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens'</a> 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 somewhat. But the compensation is not revocable; if, that is, it will be revoked by iteration — (iteration) of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>, of course, and blood and <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a>: 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 <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a> 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, and the counsel embodied therein, will cease (only) with the world. 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 <q><a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a></q> or to <q>blood.</q> From which final decision of theirs that the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> should have departed, is (I think) not lawful to <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a>; or else, if some find it possible to <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> so, they will be bound to prove it.</p> <h2>Chapter 13. Of St. Paul, and the Person Whom He Urges the Corinthians to Forgive.</h2> <p>We <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> plainly at this point, too, the suspicions which they raise. For, in fact, they suspect the <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Apostle Paul</a> 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 <q>surrendered to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>, for the destruction of the flesh,</q> — impious heir as he was to his father's wedlock; as if he subsequently erased his own words, writing: <q>But if any has wholly saddened, he has not wholly saddened <em>me</em>, but in part, lest I burden you all. Sufficient is such a chiding which is given by many; so that, on the contrary, you should prefer to forgive and console, lest, perhaps, by more abundant sadness, such an one be devoured. For which reason, I <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">pray</a> you, confirm toward him affection. For to this end withal have I written, that I may learn a <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of you, that in all (things) you are <a href="../cathen/11181c.htm">obedient</a> to me. But if you shall have forgiven any, so (do) I; for I, too, if I have forgiven ought, have forgiven in the person of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, lest we be overreached by <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>, since we are not <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a> of his injections.</q> What (reference) is understood here to the fornicator? What to the contaminator of his father's bed? what to the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> who had overstepped the shamelessness of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a>?— since, of course, he would have absolved by a special pardon one whom he had condemned by a special <a href="../cathen/01489a.htm">anger</a>. 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), <a href="../cathen/01489a.htm">anger</a> 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 <em>moderate</em> indulgence; which (moderation in the indulgence) was now, if ever, to be divined, when it is usual for all the <em>greatest</em> 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 <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a>, the repentant adulterer, lead into the midst and prostrate him, all in haircloth and ashes, a compound of disgrace and horror, before the <a href="../cathen/15617c.htm">widows</a>, 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, <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> your harangue with all the allurements of mercy in your power, and under the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parable</a> of the <q>ewe</q> go in quest of your goats? do you, for <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> lest your <q>ewe</q> 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 <q>would confirm toward him affection,</q> as if he were making satisfaction to him, not as if he were granting an indulgence! And yet I hear (him speak of) <q>affection,</q> not <q>communion;</q> as (he writes) withal to the Thessalonians: <q>But if any <a href="../cathen/11181c.htm">obey</a> 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.</q> Accordingly, he could have said that to a fornicator, too, <q>affection</q> only was conceded, not <q>communion</q> as well; to an incestuous man, however, not even <q>affection;</q> whom he would, to be sure, have bidden to be banished from their <em>midst</em> — much more, of course, from their <em>mind</em>. <q>But he was apprehensive lest they should be 'overreached by <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>' with regard to the loss of that person whom himself had cast forth to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>; or else lest, 'by abundance of mourning, he should be devoured' whom he had sentenced to 'destruction of the flesh.'</q> Here they go so far as to interpret <q>destruction of the flesh</q> of the office of repentance; in that by <a href="../cathen/05789c.htm">fasts</a>, and squalor, and every species of neglect and studious ill-treatment devoted to the extermination of the flesh, it seems to make satisfaction to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>; so that they argue that that fornicator — that incestuous person rather — having been delivered by the apostle to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>, not with a view to <q>perdition,</q> but with a view to <q>emendation,</q> on the hypothesis that subsequently he would, on account of the <q>destruction</q> (that is, the general affliction) <q>of the flesh,</q> attain pardon, therefore did actually attain it. Plainly, the selfsame apostle delivered to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a> Hymenæus and Alexander, <q>that they might be emended into not <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blaspheming</a>,</q> as he writes to his Timotheus. <q>But withal himself says that 'a stake was given him, an <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angel</a> of <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>,' by which he was to be buffeted, lest he should exalt himself.</q> If they touch upon this (instance) withal, in order to lead us to understand that such as were <q>delivered to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a></q> by him (were so delivered) with a view to emendation, not to perdition; what similarity is there between <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemy</a> and incest, and a <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> entirely free from these — nay, rather elated from no other source than the highest <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a> and all innocence; which (elation of <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>) was being restrained in the apostle by <q>buffets,</q> if you will, by means (as they say) of pain in the ear or head? Incest, however, and <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemy</a>, deserved to have delivered the entire <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> of men to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a> himself for a possession, not to <q>an <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angel</a></q> 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 <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>, but to the apostle himself an <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angel</a> of <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a> given. Lastly, when <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Paul</a> is <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">praying</a> the Lord for its removal, what does he hear? <q>Hold my <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> sufficient; for <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a> is perfected in infirmity.</q> This they who are surrendered to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a> cannot hear. Moreover, if the crime of Hymenæus and Alexander — <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemy</a>, to wit — is irremissible in this and in the future age, of course the apostle would not, in opposition to the determinate decision of the Lord, have given to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>, <em>under a hope of pardon</em>, men already sunken from the <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> into <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemy</a>; whence, too, he pronounced them <q>shipwrecked with regard to <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>,</q> having no longer the solace of the ship, the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. For to those who, after believing, have struck upon (the rock of) <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemy</a>, pardon is denied; on the other hand, <em><a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a></em> and <em><a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a></em> are daily emerging <em>out of</em> <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemy</a>. But even if he did say, <q>I delivered them to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>, that they might receive the discipline of not <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blaspheming</a>,</q> he said it of the rest, who, by <em>their</em> deliverance to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>— that is, their projection outside the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>— had to be trained in the <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> that there must be no <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blaspheming</a>. So, therefore, the incestuous fornicator, too, he delivered, not with a view to emendation, but with a view to perdition, to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>, to whom he had already, by sinning above an <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>, gone over; that they might learn there must be no fornicating. Finally, he says, <q>for the <em>destruction</em> of the flesh,</q> not its <q> <em>torture</em></q>— condemning the actual substance through which he had fallen out (of the <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>), which substance had already perished immediately on the loss of <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>— <q>in order that the spirit,</q> he says, <q>may be saved in the day of the Lord.</q> And (here, again, is a difficulty): for let this point be inquired into, whether <em>the man's own spirit</em> will be saved. In that case, a spirit polluted with so great a <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">wickedness</a> will be saved; the object of the perdition of the flesh being, that the spirit may be saved <em>in penalty</em>. In that case, the interpretation which is contrary to ours will recognise a penalty <em>without the flesh</em>, if we lose the resurrection of the flesh. It remains, therefore, that his meaning was, that <em>that</em> spirit which is accounted to exist <em>in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a></em> must be presented <q>saved,</q> 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: <q>Do you not <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>, that a little leaven spoils the savour of the whole lump?</q> And yet incestuous fornication was not a little, but a large, leaven.</p> <h2>Chapter 14. The Same Subject Continued.</h2> <p>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, <q>Sufficient to such a man be <em>this rebuke</em> which (is administered) by many,</q> is not suitable to the person of the fornicator. For if he had sentenced him <q>to be surrendered to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a> for the destruction of the flesh,</q> of course he had <em>condemned</em> rather than <em>rebuked</em> him. Some other, then, it was to whom he willed the <q>rebuke</q> to be sufficient; if, that is, the fornicator had incurred not <q>rebuke</q> from his sentence, but <q>condemnation.</q> For I offer you withal, for your investigation, this very question: Whether there were in the first Epistle others, too, who <q>wholly saddened</q> the apostle by <q>acting disorderly,</q> and <q>were wholly saddened</q> by him, through incurring (his) <q>rebuke,</q> 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? <q>To God I give thanks that I have <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptized</a> none of you, except Crispus and Gaius, lest any say that I have <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptized</a> in my own name.</q> <q>For neither did I judge to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> anything among you but <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Jesus Christ</a>, and Him crucified.</q> And, <q>(I think) God has selected us the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> (as) hindmost, like men appointed to fight with wild beasts; since we have been made a spectacle to this world, both to <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angels</a> and to men:</q> And, <q>We have been made the offscourings of this world, the refuse of all:</q> And, <q>Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ Jesus our Lord</a>?</q> With what kind of superciliousness, on the contrary, was he compelled to declare, <q>But to me it is of small moment that I be interrogated by you, or by a <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> court-day; for neither am I conscious to myself (of any guilt);</q> and, <q>My <a href="../cathen/06585a.htm">glory</a> none shall make empty.</q> <q>Do you not <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> that we are to judge <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angels</a>?</q> Again, of how open censure (does) the free expression (find utterance), how manifest the edge of the spiritual sword, (in words like these): <q>You are already enriched! You are already satiated! You are already reigning!</q> and, <q>If any thinks himself to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>, he <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knows</a> not yet how it behooves him to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>!</q> Is he not even then <q>smiting some one's face,</q> in saying, <q>For who makes <em>you</em> to differ? What, moreover, have you which you have not received? Why do you glory as if you have not received?</q> Is he not withal <q>smiting them upon the mouth,</q> (in saying): <q>But some, in (their) <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a>, even until now eat (it) as if (it were) an idol-<a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifice</a>. But, so sinning, by shocking the weak <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">consciences</a> of the brethren thoroughly, they will <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> against <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>.</q> By this time, indeed, (he mentions individuals) by name: <q>Or have we not a power of eating, and of drinking, and of leading about <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a>, just as the other <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> withal, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?</q> and, <q>If others attain to (a share) in power over you, (may) not we rather?</q> In like manner he pricks <em>them</em>, too, with an individualizing pen: <q>Wherefore, let <em>him</em> who thinks himself to be standing, see lest he fall;</q> and, <q> <em>If any seems</em> to be contentious, we have not such a custom, nor (has) the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> of the Lord.</q> With such a final clause (as the following), wound up with a malediction, <q>If <em>any loves not</em> the <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Lord Jesus</a>, be he <a href="../cathen/01455e.htm">anathema</a> maranatha,</q> he is, of course, striking <em>some particular individual</em> through.</p> <p>But I will rather take my stand at that point where the apostle is more fervent, where the fornicator himself has troubled others also. <q>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 you? Shall I come unto you in a rod, or in a spirit of lenity?</q> For what was to succeed? <q>There is heard among you generally fornication, and such fornication as (is) not (heard) even among the <a href="../cathen/06422a.htm">Gentiles</a>, that one should have his own father's wife. And are you inflated, and have you not rather mourned, that he who has committed such a deed may be taken away from the midst of you?</q> <em>For</em> whom were they to <q>mourn?</q> Of course, for one dead. <em>To</em> whom were they to mourn? Of course, to the Lord, in order that in some way or other he may be <q>taken away from the midst of them;</q> not, of course in order that he may be put outside the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. 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 <a href="../cathen/09182a.htm">leprous</a> with irremediable uncleanness — he might more fully (than by simple <a href="../cathen/05678a.htm">excommunication</a>) incur the penalty of being <q>taken away</q> from the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. And accordingly, in so far as it was meantime possible for him to be <q>taken away,</q> he <q>adjudged such an one to be surrendered to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a> for the destruction of the flesh.</q> For it followed that flesh which was being cast forth to the <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">devil</a> should be accursed, in order that it might be discarded from the sacrament of blessing, never to return into the camp of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>.</p> <p>And thus we see in this place the apostle's severity divided, against one who was <q>inflated,</q> and one who was <q>incestuous:</q> (we see the apostle) armed against the one with <q>a rod,</q> against the other with a sentence — a <q>rod,</q> 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 immediately 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 <em>to whom</em>, because neither person nor <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a> is advertised. I will compare the cases with the senses. If the <q>incestuous</q> man is set before us, on the same platform will be the <q>inflated</q> man too. Surely the analogy of the case is sufficiently maintained, when the <q>inflated</q> is rebuked, but the <q>incestuous</q> is condemned. To the <q>inflated</q> pardon is granted, but after rebuke; to the <q>incestuous</q> no pardon seems to have been granted, as under condemnation. If it was to him for whom it was feared that he might be <q>devoured by mourning</q> that pardon was being granted, the <q>rebuked</q> one was still in danger of being devoured, losing heart on account of the commination, and mourning on account of the rebuke. The <q>condemned</q> 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 <q>mourn,</q> but to <em>suffer</em> that which, before suffering it, he might have mourned. If the reason why pardon was being granted was <q>lest we should be defrauded by <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>,</q> 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 dispatched, but in the case of a thing still safe. But the condemned one — condemned, too, to the possession of <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a>— had already perished <em>from the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a></em> at the moment when he had committed such a deed, not to say withal at the moment of being forsworn by the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> itself. How should (the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>) <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> 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) <em>that</em> judge who is not wont <q>to rebuild those things which he has destroyed, lest he be held a transgressor.</q> </p> <p>Come, now, if he had not <q>wholly saddened</q> so many <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> in the first Epistle; if he had <q>rebuked</q> none, had <q>terrified</q> none; if he had <q>smitten</q> the incestuous man alone; if, for his <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a>, he had sent none into panic, had struck (no) <q>inflated</q> 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, <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Paul</a>, the <q>apostle of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>,</q> the <q>teacher of the nations in <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and verity,</q> the <q>vessel of election,</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lust</a> —(<a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lust</a>) which he had refused to compare even with (the <a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lusts</a> of) the <a href="../cathen/06422a.htm">nations</a>, for <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> it should be set down to the account of custom; (<a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lust</a>) on which he would sit in judgment though absent, for <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> the culprit should <q>gain the time;</q> (<a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lust</a>) which he had condemned after calling to his aid even <q>the Lord's power,</q> for <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> the sentence should seem <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a>. Therefore he has trifled both with his own <q>spirit,</q> and with <q>the <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angel</a> of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>,</q> and with <q>the power of the Lord,</q> if he rescinded what by their counsel he had formally pronounced.</p> <h2>Chapter 15. The Same Subject Continued.</h2> <p>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 <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> peace to an incestuous fornicator, he should immediately have proceeded to accumulate exhortations about turning away from impurities, about pruning away of blemishes, about exhortations to <a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">deeds</a> of <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a>, as if he had decreed nothing of a contrary nature just before? Compare, in short, (and see) whether it be his province to say, <q>Wherefore, having this ministration, in accordance with (the fact) that we have obtained mercy, we faint not; but renounce the secret things of disgrace,</q> who has just released from condemnation one manifestly convicted of, not <q>disgrace</q> merely, but crime too: whether it be province, again, to excuse a conspicuous immodesty, who, among the counts of his own labours, after <q>straits and pressures,</q> after <q><a href="../cathen/05789c.htm">fasts</a> and <a href="../cathen/05647a.htm">vigils</a>,</q> has named <q><a href="../cathen/03637d.htm">chastity</a></q> also: whether it be, once more, his province to receive back into communion whatsoever reprobates, who writes, <q>For what society (is there) between righteousness and iniquity? What communion, moreover, between light and darkness? What consonance between Christ and <a href="../cathen/02408a.htm">Belial</a>? Or what part for a believer with an unbeliever? Or what agreement between the temple of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idols</a>?</q> Will he not deserve to hear constantly (the reply); <q>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 <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, righteousness is made to have fellowship with iniquity, darkness has communion with light, <a href="../cathen/02408a.htm">Belial</a> is consonant with Christ, and believer shares the <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a> with unbeliever. And <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idols</a> 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 you are a temple of the living God. For He says, That I will dwell in you, and will walk in (you), and will be their <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and they shall be to Me a people. Wherefore depart from the midst of them, be separate, and touch not the unclean.' 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 <a href="../cathen/14220b.htm">spirit</a>, perfecting <a href="../cathen/03637d.htm">chastity</a> in God's <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a>.'</q> I <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">pray</a> you, had he who fixes such (exhortations) in our minds been recalling some notorious fornicator into the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>? 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, <q>Lest, when I shall have come, God <a href="../cathen/07543b.htm">humble</a> me, and I bewail many of those who have formerly <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sinned</a>, and have not repented of the impurity which they have committed, the fornication, and the vileness,</q> he did not, of course, determine that they were to be received back (by him <em>into</em> the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>) if they should have entered (the path of) repentance, whom he was to find <em>in</em> the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a>, even by his own example, an execrator and expiator of every impurity, and universally consistent with himself in these points, restored <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> privileges to an incestuous person sooner than to some more mild offender.</p> <h2>Chapter 16. General Consistency of the Apostle.</h2> <p>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 <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> (him to be) in all his letters. (He it is) who even in the first (Epistle) was the first of all (the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a>) to dedicate the temple of God: <q>Do you not <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> that you are the temple of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and that in you the Lord dwells?</q> — who likewise, for the consecrating and purifying (of) that temple, wrote the law pertaining to the temple-keepers: <q>If any shall have marred the temple of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, him shall God mar; for the temple of God is <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a>, which (temple) are you.</q> Come, now; who in the world has (ever) redintegrated one who has been <q>marred</q> by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> (that is, delivered to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a> with a view to destruction of the flesh), after subjoining for that reason, <q>Let none seduce himself;</q> that is, let none presume that one <q>marred</q> by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> can possibly be redintegrated anew? Just as, again, among all other crimes — nay, even <em>before</em> all others — when affirming that <q>adulterers, and fornicators, and effeminates, and co-habitors with males, will not attain the <a href="../cathen/08646a.htm">kingdom of God</a>,</q> he premised, <q>Do not <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">err</a></q> — to wit, if you think they will attain it. But to them from whom <q>the kingdom</q> is taken away, of course the life which exists in the kingdom is not permitted either. Moreover, by superadding, <q>But such indeed you have been; but you have received ablution, but you have been sanctified, in the Name of the <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Lord Jesus Christ</a>, and in the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Spirit</a> of our <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>;</q> in as far as he puts on the paid side of the account such <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> <em>before</em> <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>, in so far <em>after</em> <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> he determines them irremissible, if it is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, (as it is), that they are not allowed to <q>receive ablution</q> anew. Recognise, too, in what follows, <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Paul</a> (in the character of) an immoveable column of discipline and its rules: <q>Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: God makes a full end both of the one and of the others; but the body (is) not for fornication, but for God:</q> for <q>Let Us make man,</q> said <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, <q>(conformable) to Our image and likeness.</q> <q>And God made man; (conformable) to the image and likeness of God made He him.</q> <q>The Lord for the body:</q> yes; for <q>the <a href="../cathen/09328a.htm">Word</a> was <a href="../cathen/07706b.htm">made flesh</a>.</q> <q>Moreover, God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us through His own power;</q> on account, to wit, of the union of our body with Him. And accordingly, <q>Do you not <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> your bodies (to be) members of Christ?</q> because Christ, too, is God's temple. <q>Overturn this temple, and I will in three days' space resuscitate it.</q> <q>Taking away the members of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, shall I make (them) members of an harlot? Do you not <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>, 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.</q> 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 <q>one body,</q> to which by communion I shall be agglutinated. <q>Every <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> which a <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> being may have committed is extraneous to the body; but whoever fornicates, <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> against his own body.</q> And, for <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> 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: <q>And you are not your own;</q> immediately opposing (thereto), <q>for bought you are with a price</q> — the blood, to wit, of the Lord: <q>glorify and extol the Lord in your body.</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the apostle, in order to understand with what an axe of censorship he lops, and eradicates, and extirpates, every forest of <a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lusts</a>, for <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> of permitting anything to regain strength and sprout again; behold him desiring <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> to keep a fast from the legitimate fruit of nature — the apple, I mean, of marriage: <q>But with regard to what you wrote, good it is for a man to have no contact with a <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a>; but, on account of fornication, let each one have his own wife: let husband to wife, and wife to husband, render what is due.</q> Who but must <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> that it was against his will that he relaxed the bond of this <q>good,</q> 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 immediately 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 <q>by way of indulgence, not of command.</q> For he <q> <em>wills</em></q> all to be on a level with himself. But when things lawful are (only) granted by way of indulgence, who hope for things unlawful? <q>To the unmarried</q> also, <q>and <a href="../cathen/15617c.htm">widows</a>,</q> he says, <q>It is <a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">good</a>, by his example, to persevere</q> (in their present state); <q>but if they were too weak, to marry; because it is preferable to marry than to burn.</q> With what fires, I <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">pray</a> you, is it preferable to <q>burn</q>— (the fires) of concupiscence, or (the fires) of penalty? Nay, but if fornication is pardonable, it will not be an object of <em>concupiscence</em>. But it is more (the manner) of an apostle to take forethought for the fires of <em>penalty</em>. Wherefore, if it is <em>penalty</em> which <q>burns,</q> it follows that fornication, which <em>penalty</em> awaits, is not pardonable. Meantime withal, while prohibiting <a href="../cathen/05054c.htm">divorce</a>, he uses the Lord's precept against <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> as an instrument for providing, in place of <a href="../cathen/05054c.htm">divorce</a>, either perseverance in widowhood, or else a reconciliation of peace: inasmuch as <q>whoever shall have dismissed a wife (for any <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a>) except the <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a> of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>, makes her commit <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>; and he who marries one dismissed by a husband commits <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>.</q> What powerful remedies does the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a> furnish, to prevent, to wit, the commission anew of that which He wills not should anew be pardoned!</p> <p>Now, if in all cases he says it is best for a man thus to be; <q>You are joined to a wife, seek not loosing</q> (that you may give no occasion to <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>); <q>you are loosed from a wife, seek not a wife,</q> that you may reserve an opportunity for yourself: <q>but withal, if you shall have married a wife, and if a <a href="../cathen/15458a.htm">virgin</a> shall have married, she <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> not; pressure, however, of the flesh such shall have,</q>— even here he is granting a permission by way of <q>sparing them.</q> On the other hand, he lays it down that <q>the time is wound up,</q> in order that even <q>they who have wives may be as if they had them not.</q> <q>For the fashion of this world is passing away,</q>— (this world) no longer, to wit, requiring (the command), <q>Grow and multiply.</q> Thus he wills us to pass our life <q>without anxiety,</q> because <q>the unmarried care about the Lord, how they may please <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>; the married, however, muse about the world, how they may please their spouse.</q> Thus he pronounces that the <q>preserver of a <a href="../cathen/15458a.htm">virgin</a></q> does <q>better</q> than her <q>giver in marriage.</q> Thus, too, he discriminatingly judges her to be more blessed, who, after losing her husband subsequently to her entrance into the <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, lovingly embraces the opportunity of widowhood. Thus he commends as Divine all these counsels of continence: <q>I think,</q> he says, <q>I too have the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Spirit of God</a>.</q> </p> <p>Who is this your most audacious asserter of all immodesty, plainly a <q>most faithful</q> advocate of the adulterous, and fornicators, and incestuous, in whose <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a> he has undertaken this <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a> against the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a>, so that he recites a false testimony from (the writings of) His apostle? No such indulgence granted <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Paul</a>, who endeavours to obliterate <q>necessity of the flesh</q> wholly from (the list of) even <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honourable</a> pretexts (for marriage unions). He does grant <q>indulgence,</q> I allow — not to adulteries, but to nuptials. He does <q>spare,</q> I allow — marriages, not harlotries. He tries to avoid giving pardon even to nature, for <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> he may flatter guilt. He is studious to put restraints upon the union which is heir to blessing, for <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a> <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a>; 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.</p> <h2>Chapter 17. Consistency of the Apostle in His Other Epistles.</h2> <p>Challenge me to front the apostolic line of battle; look at his Epistles: they all keep guard in defense of modesty, of <a href="../cathen/03637d.htm">chastity</a>, of <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a>; they all aim their missiles against the interests of luxury, and lasciviousness, and <a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lust</a>. What, in short, does he write to the Thessalonians withal? <q>For our consolation (originated) not of seduction, nor of impurity:</q> and, <q>This is the <a href="../cathen/15624a.htm">will</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, your sanctification, that you abstain from fornication; that each one <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> how to possess his vessel in sanctification and <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a>, not in the <a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lust</a> of concupiscence, as (do) the nations which are <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>.</q> What do the Galatians read? <q>Manifest are the works of the flesh.</q> What are these? Among the first he has set <q>fornication, impurity, lasciviousness:</q> <q>(concerning) which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that whoever do such acts are not to attain by inheritance the <a href="../cathen/08646a.htm">kingdom of God</a>.</q> The Romans, moreover — what learning is more impressed upon them than that there must be no dereliction of the Lord after believing? <q>What, then, say we? Do we persevere in <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, in order that <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> may superabound? Far be it. We, who are dead to <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, how shall we live in it still? Are you <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a> that we who have been <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptized</a> in Christ have been <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptized</a> into His death? Buried with Him, then, we have been, through the <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> into the death, in order that, as Christ has 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; <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowing</a> this, that our old man has been crucified together with Him. But if we died with Christ, we <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> that we shall live, too, with Him; <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowing</a> that <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, having been raised from the dead, no more dies, (that) death no more has domination over Him. For in that He died to <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, He died <em>once for all</em>; but in that He lives, to God He lives. Thus, too, repute yourselves dead indeed to <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, but living to God through Christ Jesus.</q> Therefore, Christ being once for all dead, none who, subsequently to <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, has died, can live again to <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, and especially to so heinous a <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. Else, if fornication and <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> may by possibility be anew admissible, Christ withal will be able anew to die. Moreover, the apostle is urgent in prohibiting <q><a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> from reigning in our mortal body,</q> whose <q>infirmity of the flesh</q> he <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knew</a>. <q>For as you have tendered your members to servile impurity and iniquity, so too now tender them servants to righteousness unto <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holiness</a>.</q> For even if he has affirmed that <q>good dwells not in his flesh,</q> yet (he means) according to <q>the law of the letter,</q> in which he <q>was:</q> but according to <q>the law of the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Spirit</a>,</q> to which he annexes us, he frees us from the <q>infirmity of the flesh.</q> <q>For the law,</q> he says, <q>of the Spirit of life has manumitted you from the law of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> and of death.</q> For albeit he may appear to be partly disputing from the standpoint of <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Judaism</a>, 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, <q><a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> has sent, through flesh, His own Son, in similitude of flesh of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>; and, because of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, has condemned <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> in the flesh; in order that the righteousness of the law,</q> he says, <q>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.</q> Moreover, he has affirmed the <q>sense of the flesh</q> to be <q>death;</q> hence too, <q>enmity,</q> and enmity <em>toward God</em>; and that <q>they who are in the flesh,</q> that is, in the <em>sense</em> of the flesh, <q>cannot please God:</q> and, <q>If you live according to flesh,</q> he says, <q>it will come to pass that you die.</q> But what do we understand <q>the sense of the flesh</q> and <q>the life of the flesh</q> (to mean), except whatever <q>it shames (one) to pronounce?</q> for the other (works) of the flesh even an apostle would have named. Similarly, too, (when writing) to the Ephesians, while recalling past (<a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">deeds</a>), he warns (them) concerning the future: <q>In which we too had our conversation, doing the concupiscences and pleasures of the flesh.</q> Branding, in fine, such as had denied themselves — <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>, to wit — on the score of having <q>delivered themselves up to the working of every impurity,</q> <q>But you,</q> he says, <q>not so have learned Christ.</q> And again he says thus: <q>Let him who was wont to steal, steal no more.</q> But, similarly, let him who was wont to commit <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> hitherto, not commit <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>; and he who was wont to fornicate hitherto, not fornicate: for he would have added these (admonitions) too, had he been in the <a href="../cathen/07099b.htm">habit</a> 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, <q>Let no base speech proceed out of your mouth.</q> Again: <q>But let fornication and every impurity not be even named among you, as becomes <a href="../cathen/04171a.htm">saints</a>,</q> — so far is it from being excused —<q><a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowing</a> this, that every fornicator or impure (person) has not God's kingdom. Let none seduce you with empty words: on this account comes the <a href="../cathen/01489a.htm">wrath</a> of God upon the sons of unbelief.</q> Who <q>seduces with empty words</q> but he who states in a public harangue that <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> 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: <q>And be not inebriated with wine, in which is voluptuousness.</q> He demonstrates, too, to the Colossians what <q>members</q> they are to <q>mortify</q> upon earth: <q>fornication, impurity, <a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lust</a>, <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> concupiscence,</q> and <q>base talk.</q> 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, <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> by certainty, obscurity by plainness. Even if, for certain, the apostle had granted pardon 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 <a href="../cathen/03777a.htm">circumcised</a> Timotheus alone, and yet did away with <a href="../cathen/03777a.htm">circumcision</a>. </p> <h2>Chapter 18. Answer to a Psychical Objection.</h2> <p><q>But these (passages),</q> says (our opponent), <q>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 immediately quite denied when <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> are condemned, since the time of the pardon is concurrent with the condemnation which it excludes.</q></p> <p>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 <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> communion to cases of this kind.</p> <p>For even in the Proverbs, which we call Par&oelig;miæ, Solomon specially (treats) of the adulterer (as being) nowhere admissible to expiation. <q>But the adulterer,</q> he says, <q>through indigence of senses acquires perdition to his own <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>; sustains 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.</q> If you think this said about a <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>, at all events about <a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">believers</a> you have already heard (it said) through Isaiah: <q>Go out from the midst of them, and be separate, and touch not the impure.</q> You have at the very outset of the <a href="../cathen/12533a.htm">Psalms</a>, <q>Blessed the man who has not gone astray in the counsel of the impious, nor stood in the way of sinners, and sat in the state-chair of pestilence;</q> whose voice, withal, (is heard) subsequently: <q>I have not sat with the conclave of vanity; and with them who act iniquitously will I not enter</q> — this (has to do with <q> <em>the church</em></q> of such as act ill — <q>and with the impious will I not sit;</q> and, <q>I will wash with the innocent mine hands, and Your altar will I surround, Lord</q> — as being <q>a host in himself</q> — inasmuch as indeed <q>With an <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> (man), <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> You will be; and with an innocent man, innocent You will be; and with an elect, elect You will be; and with a perverse, perverse You will be.</q> And elsewhere: <q>But to the sinner says the Lord, Why do you expound my righteous acts, and take up my testament through your mouth? If you saw a thief, you ran with him; and with adulterers your portion you made.</q> Deriving his instructions, therefore, from hence, the apostle too says: <q>I wrote to you in the Epistle, not to be mingled up with fornicators: not, of course, with the fornicators of this world</q> — and so forth — <q>else it behooved 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</q> (for what so intimately joined?), <q>or a defrauder</q> (for what so near akin?), and so on, <q>with such to take no food even,</q> not to say the <a href="../cathen/05572c.htm">Eucharist</a>: because, to wit, withal <q>a little leaven spoils the flavour of the whole lump.</q> Again to Timotheus: <q>Lay hands on no one hastily, nor communicate with others' <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>.</q> Again to the Ephesians: <q>Be not, then, partners with them: for you were at one time darkness.</q> And yet more earnestly: <q>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.</q> What more disgraceful than immodesties? If, moreover, even from a <q>brother</q> who <q>walks idly</q> he warns the Thessalonians to withdraw themselves, how much more withal from a fornicator! For these are the deliberate judgments of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, <q>loving the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>,</q> who <q>has delivered Himself up for her, that He may sanctify her (purifying her utterly by the laver of water) in the word, that He may present the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> to Himself <a href="../cathen/06585a.htm">glorious</a>, not having stain or wrinkle</q> — of course <em>after</em> the laver — <q>but (that) she may be <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> and without reproach;</q> thereafter, to wit, being <q>without wrinkle</q> as a <a href="../cathen/15458a.htm">virgin</a>, <q>without stain</q> (of fornication) as a spouse, <q>without disgrace</q> (of vileness), as having been <q>utterly purified.</q></p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>What if, even here, you should conceive to reply that communion is indeed denied to sinners, very especially such as had been <q>polluted by the flesh,</q> 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? — 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: <q>Communicate not with the works of darkness, <em>unless they shall</em> <em>have repented</em>;</q> and, <q>With such take not food even, <em>unless after they shall have wiped, with rolling at their feet, the shoes of the brethren</em>;</q> and, <q>Him who shall have marred the temple of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, shall God mar, <em>unless he shall have shaken off from his head in the church the ashes of all hearths</em>.</q> 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, severity. However, since in all Epistles he both prohibits such a character, (so sinning) after believing, from being admitted (to the society of <a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">believers</a>); and, if admitted, detrudes him from communion, without hope of any condition or time; he sides more with <em>our</em> opinion, pointing out that the repentance which the Lord prefers is that which <em>before</em> believing, <em>before</em> <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>, is esteemed better than the death of the sinner — (the sinner, I say,) once for all to be washed through the <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, who once for all has suffered death for our <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>. 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, of whom himself had been the <q>first,</q> what does he add? <q>And I obtained mercy, because I did (so) <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorantly</a> in unbelief.</q> Thus that clemency of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, preferring the repentance of a sinner to his death, looks at such as are <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a> still, and still unbelieving, for the sake of whose liberation Christ came; not (at such) as already <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and have learned the sacrament of the <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>. But if the clemency of God is applicable to such as are <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorant</a> still, and unbelieving, of course it follows that repentance invites clemency to itself; without prejudice to that species of repentance <em>after</em> believing, which either, for lighter <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, will be able to obtain pardon from the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, or else, for greater and irremissible ones, from God only. </p> <h2>Chapter 19. Objections from the Revelation and the First Epistle of St. John Refuted.</h2> <p>But how far (are we to treat) of <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Paul</a>; 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 <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angel</a> of the Thyatirenes, the Spirit sends a message that He <q>has against him that he kept (in communion) the <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a> <a href="../cathen/08404a.htm">Jezebel</a>, who calls herself a <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophet</a>, and teaches, and seduces my servants unto fornicating and eating of idol <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifice</a>. 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.</q> I am content with the fact that, between <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a>, there is a common agreement in rules of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and of discipline. For, <q>Whether (it be) I,</q> says (<a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Paul</a>), <q>or they, thus we preach.</q> Accordingly, it is material to the interest of the whole sacrament to <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> nothing conceded by John, which has been flatly refused by <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Paul</a>. This harmony of the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a> whoever observes, shall by Him be conducted into His meanings. For (the <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angel</a> of the Thyatirene Church) was secretly introducing into the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, and urging <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justly</a> to repentance, an <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretical</a> <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a>, who had taken upon herself to teach what she had learned from the <a href="../cathen/11067a.htm">Nicolaitans</a>. For who has a <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> that an <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretic</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>? Whence even among us, as being on a par with an <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>, nay even more than <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>, an <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretic</a> likewise, (such an one) is purged through the <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> of <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> from each character, and admitted (to the Church). Or else, if you are certain that that <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a> had, after a living <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, subsequently expired, and turned <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretic</a>, in order that you may claim pardon as the result of repentance, not as it were for an <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretical</a>, but as it were for a believing, sinner: let her, I grant, repent; but with the view of ceasing from <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. </p> <p>In short, this Apocalypse, in its later passages, has assigned <q>the <a href="../cathen/08001a.htm">infamous</a> and fornicators,</q> as well as <q>the cowardly, and unbelieving, and murderers, and sorcerers, and idolaters,</q> who have been guilty of any such crime while professing the <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, to <q>the lake of fire,</q> without any <em>conditional</em> condemnation. For it will not appear to savour of (a bearing upon) <em><a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathens</a></em>, since it has (just) pronounced with regard to <em><a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">believers</a></em>, <q>They who shall have conquered shall have this inheritance; and I will be to them a <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and they to me for sons;</q> and so has subjoined: <q>But to the cowardly, and unbelieving, and <a href="../cathen/08001a.htm">infamous</a>, 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.</q> Thus, too, again: <q>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 <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> city. Dogs, sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, out!</q> — of course, such as do <em>not</em> act according to the precepts; for <em>to be sent out</em> is the portion of those <em>who have been within</em>. Moreover, <q>What have I to do to judge them who are without?</q> had preceded (the sentences now in question).</p> <p>From the Epistle also of John they immediately cull (a <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a>). It is said: <q>The blood of His Son purifies us utterly from every <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>.</q> Always then, and in every form, we will <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, if always and from every <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> He utterly purifies us; or else, if not <em>always</em>, not again after believing; and if not from <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, not again from fornication. But what is the point whence (John) has started? He had predicated <q><a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a></q> to be <q>Light,</q> and that <q>darkness is not in Him,</q> and that <q>we lie if we say that we have communion with Him, and walk in darkness.</q> <q>If, however,</q> he says, <q>we walk in the light, we shall have communion with Him, and the blood of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Jesus Christ</a> our Lord purifies us utterly from every <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>.</q> Walking, then, in the light, do we <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>? And, sinning in the light, shall we be utterly purified? By no means. For he who <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> is not in the light, but in darkness. Whence, too, he points out the mode in which we shall be utterly purified from <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>— (by) <q>walking in the light,</q> in which <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> cannot be committed. Accordingly, the sense in which he says we <q>are utterly purified</q> is, not in so far as we <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, but in so far as we do <em>not</em> <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. For, <q>walking in the light,</q> but not having communion with darkness, we shall act as they that are <q>utterly purified;</q> <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> not being quite laid down, but not being wittingly committed. For this is the <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a> of the Lord's blood, that such as it has already purified from <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, and thenceforward has set <q>in the light,</q> it renders thenceforward pure, if they shall continue to persevere walking in the light. <q>But he subjoins,</q> you say, <q>If we say that we have not <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, we are seducing ourselves, and the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> is not in us. If we confess our <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, faithful and just is He to remit them to us, and utterly purify us from every unrighteousness.</q> Does he say <q>from impurity?</q> (No): or else, if that is so, then (He <q>utterly purifies</q> us) from <q><a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a></q> too. But there is a difference in the sense. For see yet again: <q>If we say,</q> he says, <q>that we have not <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sinned</a>, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.</q> All the more fully: <q>Little children, these things have I written to you, lest you <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>; and if you shall have <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sinned</a>, an Advocate we have with <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> the <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">Father</a>, <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Jesus Christ</a> the righteous; and, He is the propitiation for our <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>.</q> <q>According to these words,</q> you say, <q>it will be admitted both that we <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, and that we have pardon.</q> What, then, will become (of your theory), when, proceeding (with the Epistle), I find something different? For he affirms that <em>we do not <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> at all</em>; and to this end he treats at large, that he may make no such concession; setting forth that <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> 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 <em><a href="../cathen/03637d.htm">chastity</a></em>. <q>Every one,</q> he says, <q>who has this hope, makes himself chaste, because He too is chaste. Every one who does <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, does withal iniquity; and <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> is iniquity. And you <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> that He has been manifested to take away <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a></q>— henceforth, of course, to be no more incurred, if it is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, (as it is,) that he subjoins, <q>Every one who abides in Him <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> not; every one who <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> neither has seen nor <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knows</a> Him. Little children, let none seduce you. Every one who does righteousness is righteous, as He withal is righteous. He who does <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> is of the <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">devil</a>, inasmuch as the <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">devil</a> <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> from the beginning. For unto this end was manifested the <a href="../cathen/14142b.htm">Son of God</a>, to undo the works of the <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">devil</a>:</q> for He has <q>undone</q> them withal, by setting man free through <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>, the <q>handwriting of death</q> having been <q>made a gift of</q> to him: and accordingly, <q>he who is being born of God does not <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, because the seed of God abides in him; and he cannot <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, because he has been born of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. Herein are manifest the sons of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and the sons of the <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">devil</a>.</q> <em>Where</em>in? Except it be (thus): the former by not sinning, from the time that they were born from <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>; the latter by sinning, because they are from the <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">devil</a>, just as if they never were born from God? But if he says, <q>He who is not <em>righteous</em> is not of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>,</q> how shall he who is not <em>modest</em> again become (a son) of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, who has already ceased to be so?</p> <p><q>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 <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, but now prescribing that we do not <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> at all: and in the one case flattering us somewhat with hope of pardon, but in the other asserting with all stringency, that whoever may have <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sinned</a> are no sons of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>.</q> But away with (the thought): for not even we ourselves forget the distinction between <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> of daily committal, to which we all are liable: for who will be free from the accident of either being <a href="../cathen/01489a.htm">angry</a> <a href="../cathen/08010c.htm">unjustly</a>, and retaining his <a href="../cathen/01489a.htm">anger</a> beyond sunset; or else even using manual <a href="../cathen/15446a.htm">violence</a> or else carelessly speaking <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a>; or else rashly swearing; or else forfeiting his plighted word or else lying, from bashfulness or <q>necessity?</q> In businesses, in official duties, in trade, in food, in sight, in hearing, by how great <a href="../cathen/14504a.htm">temptations</a> are we plied! So that, if there were no pardon for such <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> as these, <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a> would be unattainable to any. Of these, then, there will be pardon, through the successful Suppliant of the <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">Father</a>, Christ. But there are, too, the contraries of these; as the graver and destructive ones, such as are incapable of pardon — <a href="../cathen/07441a.htm">murder</a>, <a href="../cathen/07636a.htm">idolatry</a>, fraud, <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostasy</a>, <a href="../cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemy</a>; (and), of course, too, <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication; and if there be any other <q>violation of the temple of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>.</q> For these Christ will no more be the successful Pleader: these will not at all be incurred by one who has been born of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, who will cease to be the son of God if he do incur them.</p> <p>Thus John's rule of diversity will be established; arranging as he does a distinction of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, while he now admits and now denies that the sons of God <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. 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: <q>If any <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knows</a> his brother to be sinning a <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> not unto death, he shall make request, and the Lord shall give life to him who <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> not unto death. For there is a <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> unto death: not concerning that do I say that one should make request.</q> He, too, (as I have been), was mindful that Jeremiah had been prohibited by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> to deprecate (Him) on behalf of a people which was committing mortal <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>. <q>Every unrighteousness is <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>; and there is a <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> unto death. But we <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> that every one who has been born of God <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> not</q> — to wit, the <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> which is unto death. Thus there is no course left for you, but either to deny that <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> and fornication are mortal <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>; or else to confess them irremissible, for which it is not permitted even to make successful intercession.</p> <h2>Chapter 20. From Apostolic Teaching Tertullian Turns to that of Companions of the Apostles, and of the Law.</h2> <p>The discipline, therefore, of the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> properly (so called), indeed, instructs and determinately directs, as a principal point, the overseer of all <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a> as regards the temple of God to the universal eradication of every <a href="../cathen/13321a.htm">sacrilegious</a> outrage upon modesty, without any mention of restoration. I wish, however, redundantly to superadd the testimony likewise of one particular comrade of the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> —(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 <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, as being one whom <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Paul</a> has stationed next to himself in the uninterrupted observance of abstinence: <q>Or else, I alone and Barnabas, have not we the power of working?</q> And, of course, the Epistle of Barnabas is more generally received among the Churches than that <a href="../cathen/01601a.htm">apocryphal</a> <q>Shepherd</q> of adulterers. Warning, accordingly, the <a href="../cathen/05029a.htm">disciples</a> 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: <q>For impossible it is that they who have once been illuminated, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have participated in the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a>, and have tasted the word of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/14142b.htm">Son of God</a>, and dishonouring Him.</q> <q>For the earth which has drunk the rain often descending upon it, and has borne grass apt for them on whose account it is tilled withal, attains God's blessing; but if it brings forth thorns, it is reprobate, and nighest to cursing, whose end is (doomed) unto utter burning.</q> He who learned this <em>from</em> <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a>, and taught it <em>with</em> <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a>, never <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knew</a> of any <q>second repentance</q> promised by <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> to the adulterer and fornicator.</p> <p>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 <a href="../cathen/09182a.htm">leper</a>: <q>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 <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, when he shall have seen, shall utterly cleanse him: since he has wholly turned into white he is clean. But on the day that there shall have been seen in such an one quick color, he is defiled.</q> (The Law) would have the man who is wholly turned from the pristine habit of the flesh to the whiteness of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>— which (<a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>) is esteemed a defect and blemish in (the eyes of) the world — and is wholly made new, to be understood to be <q>clean;</q> as being no longer <q>speckled,</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> in his flesh must again be judged unclean, and must no more be expiated by the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>. Thus <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>, sprouting again from the pristine stock, and wholly blemishing the unity of the new color 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 <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/09182a.htm">leprosy</a> 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. 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 <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, may be clean; and when the <a href="../cathen/09328a.htm">Word of God</a> has entered it, and has found <q>stains of red and green,</q> immediately must the deadly and sanguinary <a href="../cathen/11534a.htm">passions</a> <q>be extracted</q> and <q>cast away</q> out of doors — for the Apocalypse withal has set <q>death</q> upon a <q>green horse,</q> but a <q>warrior</q> upon a <q>red</q> — and in their stead must be under-strewn stones polished and apt for conjunction, and firm — such as are made (by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>) into (sons) of <a href="../cathen/01051a.htm">Abraham</a>, — that thus the man may be fit for God. But if, after the recovery and reformation, the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> 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. This will be the man — flesh and <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>— who, subsequently to reformation, after <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> and the entrance of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, again resumes the scabs and stains of the flesh, and <q>is case away outside the city into an unclean place,</q>— <q>surrendered,</q> to wit, <q>to <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">Satan</a> for the destruction of the flesh,</q>— and is no more rebuilt in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> after his ruin. So, too, with regard to lying with a female slave, who had been <a href="../cathen/02537c.htm">betrothed</a> to an husband, but not yet redeemed, not yet set free: <q>provision,</q> 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. For flesh not yet manumitted to <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, for whom it was being kept, used to be contaminated with impunity: so now, after manumission, it no more receives pardon.</p> <h2>Chapter 21. Of the Difference Between Discipline and Power, and of the Power of the Keys.</h2> <p>If the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> 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 <em>doctrine</em> of <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> and their <em>power</em>. Discipline governs a <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a>, power sets a seal upon him; apart from the fact that power is the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Spirit</a>, but the Spirit is <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. What, moreover, used (the Spirit) to teach? That there must be no communicating with the works of darkness. Observe what He bids. Who, moreover, was able to forgive <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>? This is His alone prerogative: for <q>who remits <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> but God alone?</q> and, of course, (who but He can remit) <em>mortal</em> <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, such as have been committed against Himself, and against His temple? For, as far as you are concerned, such as are chargeable with offense against you personally, you are commanded, in the person of Peter, to forgive even seventy times sevenfold. And so, if it were agreed that even the blessed <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> had granted any such indulgence (to any crime) the pardon of which (comes) from <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, 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, which <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> alone (can do), and restored the debilitated to their integrity, which none but Christ (can do); nay, they inflicted 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 and Elymas — Ananias with death, Elymas with blindness — in order that by this very fact it might be <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> that Christ had <em>had the power</em> of doing even <em>such</em> (<a href="../cathen/10338a.htm">miracles</a>). So, too, had the <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophets</a> (of old) granted to the repentant the <em>pardon</em> of <a href="../cathen/07441a.htm">murder</a>, and therewith of <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a>, inasmuch as they gave, at the same time, manifest <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proofs</a> of <em>severity</em>. Exhibit therefore even now to me, apostolic sir, prophetic evidences, that I may recognise your divine <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a>, and vindicate to yourself the <em>power</em> of remitting such <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>! If, however, you have had the functions of <em>discipline</em> alone allotted you, and (the duty) of presiding not imperially, but ministerially; who or how great are you, that you should grant indulgence, who, by exhibiting neither the prophetic nor the apostolic character, lack that <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a> whose property it is to indulge?</p> <p><q>But,</q> you say, <q> <em>the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a></em> has the power of forgiving <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>.</q> This I acknowledge and adjudge more (than you; I) who have the Paraclete Himself in the <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> of the new <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophets</a>, saying, <q>The Church has the power to forgive <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>; but I will not do it, lest they commit others withal.</q> <q>What if a pseudo-prophetic spirit has made that declaration?</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. Or if, again, (the pseudo-prophetic spirit) has been eager to affect this (sentiment) in accordance with <q>the Spirit of <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a>,</q> it follows that <q>the Spirit of <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a></q> has indeed the <em>power</em> of indulgently granting pardon to fornicators, but <em>wills</em> not to do it if it involve <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> to the majority.</p> <p>I now inquire into your opinion, (to see) from what source you usurp this right to <q>the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>.</q></p> <p>If, because the Lord has said to Peter, <q>Upon this rock will I build My Church,</q> <q>to you have I given the keys of the heavenly kingdom;</q> or, <q>Whatsoever you shall have bound or loosed in earth, shall be bound or loosed in the heavens,</q> 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? <q> <em>On you</em>,</q> He says, <q>will I build My Church;</q> and, <q>I will give <em>to you</em> the keys,</q> not <em>to the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a></em>; and, <q>Whatsoever <em>you shall have loosed or bound</em>,</q> not what <em>they</em> shall have loosed or bound. For so withal the result teaches. In (Peter) himself the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> was reared; that is, <em>through</em> (Peter) himself; (Peter) himself essayed the key; you see <em>what</em> (key): <q>Men of <a href="../cathen/08193a.htm">Israel</a>, let what I say sink into your ears: Jesus the Nazarene, a man destined by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> for you,</q> and so forth. (Peter) himself, therefore, was the first to unbar, in Christ's <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>, the entrance to the heavenly kingdom, in which (kingdom) are <q>loosed</q> the <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> that were beforetime <q>bound;</q> and those which have not been <q>loosed</q> are <q>bound,</q> in accordance with <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a>; and Ananias he <q>bound</q> with the bond of death, and the weak in his feet he <q>absolved</q> 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 <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Spirit</a>, and, after making preface touching the calling of the <a href="../cathen/06422a.htm">nations</a>, to say, <q>And now why are you 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 <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Jesus</a> we <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> that we shall be saved in the same way as they.</q> This sentence both <q>loosed</q> those parts of the law which were abandoned, and <q>bound</q> those which were reserved. Hence the power of loosing and of binding committed to Peter had nothing to do with the capital <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> of <a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">believers</a>; and if the Lord had given him a precept that he must grant pardon to a brother sinning against <em>him</em> even <q>seventy times sevenfold,</q> of course He would have commanded him to <q>bind</q>— that is, to <q>retain</q> — <em>nothing</em> subsequently, unless perchance such (<a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>) as one may have committed against <em>the Lord</em>, not against a <em>brother</em>. For the forgiveness of (<a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>) committed in the case of a <em>man</em> is a prejudgment against the remission of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> against <em>God</em>.</p> <p>What, now, (has this to do) with the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, and <em>your</em> (church), indeed, Psychic? For, in accordance with the person of Peter, it is to <em>spiritual</em> men that this power will correspondently appertain, either to an apostle or else to a <a href="../cathen/12477a.htm">prophet</a>. For the very Church itself is, properly and principally, the Spirit Himself, in whom is the Trinity of the One Divinity — Father, Son, and <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Spirit</a>. (The Spirit) combines that Church which the Lord has made to consist in <q>three.</q> And thus, from that time forward, every number (of <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a>) who may have combined together into this <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> is accounted <q>a Church,</q> from the Author and Consecrator (of the Church). And accordingly <q>the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>,</q> it is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, will forgive <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>: but (it will be) the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> of the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Spirit</a>, by means of a spiritual man; not the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> which consists of a number of <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>. For the right and arbitrament is the Lord's, not the servant's; God's Himself, not the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest's</a>.</p> <h2>Chapter 22. Of Martyrs, and Their Intercession on Behalf of Scandalous Offenders.</h2> <p>But you go so far as to lavish this <q>power</q> upon <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrs</a> 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, are soft ones — than adulterers beset him, fornicators gain access to him; instantly <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/12430a.htm">prison</a> than they who have lost (the fellowship of) the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>! Men and <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a> are violated in the darkness with which the habitual indulgence of <a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lusts</a> 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 <q><a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrdom</a></q> is necessary for <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> committed <em>after</em> <q><a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrdom</a>.</q> <q>Well, who on earth and in the flesh is faultless?</q> What <q><a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyr</a></q> (continues to be) an inhabitant of the world supplicating? Pence in hand? Subject to physician and usurer? Suppose, now, (your <q><a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyr</a></q>) beneath the glaive, with head already steadily poised; suppose him on the <a href="../cathen/04529a.htm">cross</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrdom</a>: who permits <em>man</em> to condone (offenses) which are to be reserved for <em>God</em>, by whom those (offenses) have been condemned without discharge, which not even <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">apostles</a> (so far as I <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>)— <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrs</a> withal themselves — have judged condonable? In short, <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">Paul</a> had already <q>fought with beasts at Ephesus,</q> when he decreed <q>destruction</q> to the incestuous person. Let it suffice to the <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyr</a> to have purged his own <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>: it is the part of ingratitude or of <a href="../cathen/12405a.htm">pride</a> to lavish upon others also what one has obtained at a high price. Who has redeemed another's death by his own, but the <a href="../cathen/14142b.htm">Son of God</a> alone? For even in His very passion He set the robber free. For to this end had He come, that, being Himself pure from <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, and in all respects <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a>, He might undergo death on behalf of sinners. Similarly, you who emulate Him in condoning <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, if you yourself have done no <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, 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? </p> <p>I have, even now, a test whereby to prove (the presence of) Christ (in you). If Christ is in the <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyr</a> for this reason, that the <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyr</a> may absolve adulterers and fornicators, let Him tell publicly the secrets of the heart, that He may thus concede (pardon to) <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>; and He is <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>. For thus it was that the <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Lord Jesus Christ</a> showed His power: <q>Why do you think <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> in your hearts? For which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Your <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a> are remitted you; or, Rise and walk? Therefore, that you may <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> the <a href="../cathen/14144a.htm">Son of man</a> to have the power upon earth of remitting <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, I say to you, paralytic, Rise, and walk.</q> If the Lord set so much store by the <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of His power as to reveal thoughts, and so impart health by His command, lest He should not be <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believed</a> to have the power of remitting <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>; it is not lawful for me to <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> the same power (to reside) in any one, whoever he be, without the same <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proofs</a>. In the act, however, of urgently entreating from a <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyr</a> pardon for adulterers and fornicators, you yourself confess that crimes of that nature are not to be washed away except by the <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrdom</a> of the criminal himself, while you presume (they can be washed away) by another's. If this is so, then <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrdom</a> will be another <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>. For <q>I have withal,</q> says He, <q>another <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>.</q> Whence, too, it was that there flowed out of the wound in the Lord's side water and blood, the materials of either <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>. I ought, then, by the <em>first</em> <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> too to (have the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> of) setting another free if I can by the <em>second</em>: and we must necessarily force upon the mind (of our opponents this conclusion): Whatever authority, whatever reason, restores <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostate</a>, 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 <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> who have fallen in heat of passion, than they who have fallen in hand-to-hand combat. 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 <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justly</a> concessible — that which a <a href="../cathen/15506a.htm">voluntary</a>, or that which an involuntary, sinner implores? No one is compelled <em>with</em> his will to <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostatize</a>; no one <em>against</em> his will commits fornication. Lust is exposed to no <a href="../cathen/15446a.htm">violence</a>, except itself: it <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knows</a> no coercion whatever. Apostasy, on the contrary, what ingenuities of butchery and tribes of penal inflictions enforce! Which has more <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truly</a> <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostatized</a>— 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 <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> combatant — scars, of course, enviable in the eyes of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, because they yearned after Conquest, and thus also <a href="../cathen/06585a.htm">glorious</a>, because failing to conquer they yielded; (scars) after which even the <a href="../cathen/04764a.htm">devil</a> 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 <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostasy</a> was expiable! In their case alone is the <q>flesh weak.</q> Nay, no flesh so strong as that which crushes out the Spirit!</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='fathers-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="pub"> <h2>About this page</h2> <p id="src"><strong>Source.</strong> <span id="srctrans">Translated by S. Thelwall.</span> From <span id="srcwork">Ante-Nicene Fathers</span>, <span id="srcvolume">Vol. 4.</span> <span id="srced">Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe.</span> (<span id="srcpublisher">Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co.,</span> <span id="srcyear">1885.</span>) <span id="kk">Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.</span> <span id="srcurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0407.htm>.</span></p> <p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 <em>at</em> newadvent.org. 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