Homilies on First Corinthians 18

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? God forbid.

Having passed from the fornicator to the covetous man, again from the latter he comes back to the former, no longer indeed conversing with him, but with the others who had not committed fornication;

and while safeguarding these lest they ever fall into the same sins, he again lays hold of that one.

For the one who has sinned, even though you direct your discourse to another, is pricked even so, as his conscience is roused up and scourges him.

Now the fear arising from punishment was indeed sufficient to hold them fast in self-control;

but since he does not wish to set such matters right by fear alone, he adds both threats and reasonings.

There, then, having named the sin, and defined the punishment, and shown the harm that arose to all from association with the fornicator, he took his leave, and passed on to covetousness; and having threatened this man and all the rest whom he enumerated with exclusion from the kingdom, he thus rounded off his discourse;

but here he handles the exhortation in an even more awesome manner.

For he who only punishes the sin, and does not show it to be exceedingly lawless, accomplishes nothing so great by the punishment;

and again, he who only shames, and does not frighten by means of chastisement, does not strongly lay hold of those who are insensibly disposed.

Wherefore Paul does both, and shames them, saying:

Do you not know that we shall judge angels? and frightens them, saying:

Do you not know that the covetous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? And concerning the fornicator he again uses his words in the same way;

for having frightened him by what he said before, both cutting him off and delivering him to Satan, and reminding him of the coming day, he again shames him, saying:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? conversing henceforth as with noble children.

For since he had said, 'But the body is for the Lord,' he now shows this more clearly;

and elsewhere too he does this very thing, saying:

Now you are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

And he sets down the same illustration in many places, not for the same purposes, but sometimes so as to show love, and sometimes so as to heighten fear;

but here he has set it down to alarm and to frighten;

Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? God forbid.

There is nothing more awesome than this expression.

And he did not say, 'Shall I then take the members of Christ and join them to the harlot?'

but what? Shall I make them members of a harlot? which was more striking.

Then he establishes how this comes about—that the fornicator does this—speaking thus:

Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body? Whence is this manifest? For the two, he says, shall be one flesh.

But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

For union no longer suffers the two to be two, but makes both one.

And observe again how he advances by means of the bare names, pressing home the accusation through 'the harlot' and through 'Christ.'

He did not say, 'Abstain from fornication,' but 'Flee it'—that is, 'With all diligence make your escape from this evil.'

'Every sin that a man may do is outside the body;'

'but he that commits fornication sins against his own body.'

This is a lesser thing than the former;

yet, since his discourse was about fornicators, he presses the point from every side, magnifying the charge both from the greater things and from the lesser.

That former argument, then, was addressed to the more reverent, but this one to the weaker.

For this too belongs to Paul's wisdom: to shame them not only from great considerations, but also from smaller ones—from what is base and unseemly.

What then? 'Does not the murderer,' one might say, 'also

defile his hand? And what of the covetous man and the robber?' It is plain to everyone;

but since it was not possible to say that anything is worse than the fornicator, he magnified the matter in another way, saying that in fornication the whole body becomes defiled.

For just as a thing falling into a cauldron of filth and steeped in its pollution, so is it befouled.

For after covetousness and robbery no one would be eager to go to the bath-house, but he goes up to his house without any concern;

but after intercourse with a harlot, as one become wholly unclean, he goes off to wash himself;

so it is that the conscience harbors, from this sin, a peculiarly shameful estimate of it.

Both, then, are grievous—both covetousness and fornication—and cast a man into hell;

but since Paul does everything with prudent management, he magnified the charge of fornication by the very means at his disposal.

'Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?' (2)

He did not say simply 'of the Spirit,' but 'of him who is in you,' which was also the language of one comforting;

and again, by way of further explanation, he added:

And he set down the Giver as well, at once exalting the hearer and striking him with fear both by the greatness of the deposit and by the munificence of the One who deposited it.

This belongs not merely to one who shames, but to one who compels toward virtue.

For what? 'You do what you will,' he says;

But he said these things, not to do away with free will;

for when he said, 'All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient,' he did not take away our liberty;

and here again, writing that 'ye are not your own,' he does not injure the will, but leads us away from vice and shows forth the Master's providential care.

But if I am not my own, how do you require of me the things to be done? And how, going on, do you again say, 'Glorify then God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's'? What then is the meaning of 'ye are not your own,' and what does he wish to establish by it? To set us in security against sinning and against following the disordered lusts of the soul.

For we desire many disordered things, but we must restrain them;

and if we are not able, the exhortation is superfluous.

For having said, 'Ye are not your own,' he did not add, 'But ye are under compulsion,' but 'Ye were bought with a price.'

'Why do you say this? Surely,' one might perhaps say, 'you ought to have urged it from another quarter, showing that we have a Master.'

But this indeed is common to us with the heathen as well, whereas the words 'Ye were bought with a price' are our special possession.

For he reminds them of the greatness of the benefit and of the manner of their salvation, showing that, having been made strangers, we were bought back;

and not simply, but with a price.

'Glorify then'—lift up God in your body and in your spirit.

And he says these things so that we may flee fornication not with the body only, but also may in the spirit of the soul devise nothing wicked nor drive away grace.

For since he had said, 'your,' therefore he added, 'which are God's,' continually reminding us that all things belong to the Master—both body and soul and spirit.

For some indeed say that by 'in the spirit' he means 'in the gift of grace.'

For if that be with us, God is glorified;

and it will be so, if we have a clean heart.

And he said that they are God's, not only because He brought them into being, but because also, when they had been estranged, He purchased them a second time, laying down as a price the blood of the Son.

Behold how he has referred the whole to Christ;

how he has led us up to heaven.

'Ye are members of Christ,' he says; 'ye are a temple of the Spirit;'

become not, therefore, members of a harlot;

for it is not your own body that is outraged;

for the body is not yours, but Christ's.

And he said these things, at once displaying God's love toward man—that our body is His—and rescuing us from the wicked authority.

'For if the body belongs to another, ye have no authority to outrage another's body,' he says, 'and least of all when it is the Master's, nor to defile the temple of the Spirit.'

For if a man, breaking into a private house and reveling in it, shall pay the uttermost penalty;

he that makes a king's temple a robber's lodging—

consider how many evils he shall suffer.

Considering these things, then, reverence the One who dwells within;

for this is the Paraclete;

shudder at Him who is joined and cleaved to you;

For did you not make yourself members of Christ? Consider it thus, and abide in chastity: whose members you were, and whose you have become.

Before this you were members of a harlot, and Christ made them members of His own body.

Henceforth, then, you have no authority over them;

serve Him who has set you free.

For neither, if having a daughter you had out of great folly let her out for hire to a keeper of harlots and made her play the harlot, and then a king's son passing by both freed her from that servitude and joined her to himself—would you thereafter be lord to lead her back to the brothel;

for once for all you gave her up and sold her.

Such also is our case;

we let out our own flesh for hire to the devil, that grievous keeper of harlots;

Christ, seeing it, delivered her and rescued her from that wicked tyranny;

she is therefore no longer ours, but belongs to Him who delivered her.

If you are willing to treat her as a king's bride, there is none to hinder you;

but if you lead her back to her former state, you will suffer the same things as are fitting for those who commit such outrages.

Wherefore we ought rather to adorn her, not to put her to shame.

For you have no authority over the flesh to use it in wicked lusts, but only in those things which God may enjoin.

Consider, then, from how great a disgrace God has delivered her; for before this our nature stood forth more shameful than any harlot.

For indeed our nature stood forth, before this, more shameful than any harlot.

For robberies and murders, and every lawless thought that entered into her, lay down together with the soul; and for a small and chance hire—the pleasure of the present moment.

For the soul, mingled with wicked thoughts and deeds, reaped only this as its wage.

But that these things should happen before this—though it was a dreadful thing—was not so dreadful.

But to be defiled again after heaven, after the kingdom, after enjoying the awful Mysteries—what pardon shall this have? Or do you not think that the devil himself lies down with the covetous and with all those whom he enumerated before? And do you not consider that the women who adorn themselves for wantonness are mingling with him? And who will contradict this saying? But if anyone is contentious, let him strip the soul of the women who behave thus indecently, and he will by all means see that wicked demon vehemently entangled with them.

For it is difficult, beloved, difficult—nay perhaps even impossible—that while the body is thus adorned, the soul should be adorned as well.

But it is inevitable that the one be neglected while the other is cared for.

For it is not in the nature of things that both should happen together.

He who is joined to the harlot is one body;

but he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

For such a one henceforth becomes spirit, even though a body still surrounds him.

For when there is nothing bodily nor gross nor earthly about him, the body simply surrounds him;

when the whole rule belongs to the soul and to the spirit, then is God glorified.

Wherefore in the prayer also we are bidden to say:

'Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.'

Thus do the heavens also glorify Him, not by uttering a voice, but by being marveled at through the sight, and referring the glory to the Creator.

Let us also glorify Him thus, nay rather even more than they;

for we are able, if we will.

For not so do heaven and day and night glorify God as a holy soul does.

For just as one who looks upon the beauty of heaven says:

'Glory to Thee, O God: what a work Thou hast created!'

so also does he who looks upon the virtue of a man—and much more here.

For from those created things not all glorify Him, but many even say that existing things are self-generated;

and others attribute the creation and providence of the world to demons—men who sin most unpardonably;

but in the case of a man's virtue, no one will be able to be so shameless, but will by all means glorify God, seeing him who serves Him living in virtue.

He will be astounded when a man, being a partaker of the common nature, and moving about in the midst of men, like adamant is not bent toward the swarm of passions; when, being amid fire and iron and wild beasts, he is stronger than adamant, and prevails over all things for the sake of the word of godliness; when he is insulted, and blesses; when he is spoken ill of, and gives praise; when he is treated spitefully, and prays for those who do him wrong; when he is plotted against, and does good to those who war against him and plot against him. For these things and things like these will glorify God far more than the heavens.

For the Greeks, when they behold the heaven, are not ashamed;

but when they see a holy man displaying philosophy with exactness, they hide themselves and condemn themselves.

For when one who shares the same nature as they is so much superior—nay, far more than the heaven is above the earth—even against their will they perceive that a divine power works these things.

'And they shall glorify your Father which is in heaven.'

Do you wish to learn from another quarter also, how God is glorified from the life of His servants, and how from the miracles? Nebuchadnezzar once cast the three children into the furnace.

Then, when he saw that the fire did not prevail over them, he says:

'Blessed be God, who hath sent His angel, and delivered His servants out of the furnace, because they trusted in Him, and changed the word of the king.'

What sayest thou? Thou wast despised, and dost thou marvel at those who spat upon thee? 'Yea,' saith he, 'even for this very cause, because I was despised.'

And he sets down this as the cause of the wonder.

So that the glory then came to God not only because of the sign, but also because of the free choice of those who were cast in.

And if one should examine each of these by itself, this one and that one, this is not less than that.

For to persuade souls to dare the furnace is, in respect of the account of the wonder, not less than to deliver from the furnace.

For how is it not worthy of amazement, when the king of the world, having about himself so many arms and armies and generals and governors and consuls, and land and sea subject to him, is despised by captive children, and the bound men prevail over him who bound them, and conquer all that army? For those about the king did not have the strength to do what they wished, and that though they had the alliance of the furnace on their side;

but the naked and enslaved and foreign and few—for what is fewer than three?—being bound, overcame a countless army.

For death was already being despised, since Christ was henceforth about to sojourn among men;

and just as, when the sun is about to rise, even before its rays appear, the light of day becomes bright;

so also, when the Sun of Righteousness was about to come, death henceforth withdrew.

What could be more brilliant than that theater? What more conspicuous than that victory?

What more notable than those new trophies?

This happens in our case also.

Even now there is the king of the Babylonian furnace, and even now he kindles a flame more grievous than that one;

there is even now he who commands men to marvel at such an image;

there are present with him both satraps and soldiers and bewitching music;

and many marvel at this image, the manifold, the great.

For such a thing is covetousness, like that image, despising not even iron, but composed of dissimilar materials, and commanding all to marvel—both brass and iron and things far more worthless than these.

But just as these things exist, so also are there even now emulators of those children, who say:

'We serve not thy gods, nor do we worship thine image, but we endure even the furnace of poverty, and all other affliction, for the sake of the laws of God.'

And those who have much, just like those men of old, often even worship this image and are burned up;

but those who possess nothing both despise it, and, being in poverty, are rather in dew than those who live in abundance;

just as then also those who cast them in were burned up, but those who were in the midst were as though in water and dew.

And that tyrant then also was rather burned by the flame, his wrath kindling him more fiercely,

than those children were.

For of them the fire had not the strength even to touch the tips of their hairs;

but this man's mind wrath consumed more fiercely than fire.

For consider how great a thing it was, before so many eyes, for him to be spat upon by captive children.

For he showed henceforth that he had taken their city too, not by his own strength, but by the sin of the multitude.

For if he had not the strength to prevail over the bound, and that when they were cast into a furnace, how should he have prevailed over these by the law of war, when all were such as they? Whence it is plain that the sins of the multitude delivered up the city.

And observe too the freedom from vainglory in the children.

For they did not leap upon the furnace, but kept the command of Christ given from above, who says:

'Pray that ye enter not into temptation;'

neither did they flee when they were brought, but stood nobly in the midst, neither contending when uncalled, nor growing soft when called, but ready and noble toward all things, and full of all boldness of speech.

But let us hear also what they say, that from this too we may learn their philosophic mind:

'There is a God in the heavens able to deliver us.'

For they take no thought for themselves, but even when about to be burned, their concern is for the glory of God.

'Lest at any time,' he says, 'when we have been burned up, you should charge God with weakness, we now declare to you fully and exactly all our own doctrine.'

There is a God in the heavens, not such as this image here upon the earth, which is lifeless and voiceless, but One mighty even to snatch us out of the very midst of the blazing furnace.

Do not therefore charge Him with weakness because He permits us to fall in.

So mighty is He that, even after we have fallen in, He is able again to snatch us out of the flame.

'And even if not, be it known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor do we worship the golden image which you have set up.'

Observe how, by a dispensation, they did not know what was to come.

For had they foreknown it, they would not even have been admirable in doing what they did.

For what wonder is it, if, holding pledges of their deliverance, they braved the terrors? Nay, God indeed was glorified, in that He was able to bring them out of the furnace;

but they would not have been marveled at, seeing that they had not cast themselves into the dangers.

For this reason He suffered them to be ignorant of what was to come, that He might glorify them the more.

And just as they on their part took care that the king should not charge God with weakness, if they were burned up;

so God did both: He displayed His own power, and He caused the readiness of the young men to shine forth the more brilliantly.

'Whence, then,' he says, 'came to them the doubt, and the not being confident that they would in every case be saved?' From their reckoning themselves in every way too worthless, and unworthy of so great a benefit.

And that I say this not by conjecture: having been cast into the furnace, they lamented in such words as these, saying:

'We have sinned, we have committed iniquity; it is not for us to open our mouth.'

But if they did not say this openly—namely, that 'God indeed is able to deliver us, but if He does not deliver us, it will be because of our sins that He does not deliver us'—do not marvel;

for they would have seemed, in the eyes of the barbarians, to be casting a veil over God's weakness under the pretext of their own transgressions.

For this reason, having discoursed only concerning His power, they do not set down the cause.

And besides, they had been well taught not to pry curiously into the judgments of God.

Having said these things, therefore, they went into the fire, and they neither insulted the king nor overthrew the image.

For the brave man ought to be of such a sort: temperate and forbearing, and especially in dangers, lest he should seem to go into such contests out of passion and vainglory, but rather out of courage and self-control.

For he who insults incurs the suspicion of those very charges;

but he who endures and is dragged along, and contends with forbearance, is admired not only as brave, but is proclaimed no less for his self-control and forbearance.

This very thing these men also did at that time, displaying both their courage and all forbearance, and doing nothing for the sake of reward, nor for recompense and requital.

'And even if He should not be willing to deliver us,' he says, 'we will not serve your gods;

for we already have our recompense,

having been counted worthy to be freed from impiety, and for this cause to have our bodies burned.'

We too, therefore, since we already have the recompense (for indeed we have it, having been counted worthy to know Him, having been counted worthy to become members of Christ), let us not make them members of a harlot.

For upon this most awe-inspiring subject the discourse must be brought to a close, that, keeping the fear of the threat at its height, we may remain purer than gold, becoming so through this fear.

For thus, being freed from fornication, we shall be able to see Christ;

whom may it be granted to us all to behold with boldness in that day, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.