帖撒羅尼迦前書講道集 第 5 章

'Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, you would abound more and more.'

'For you know what charges we gave you through our Lord Jesus Christ.'

'For this is the will of God, your sanctification.'

When he has finished with the pressing matters and those at hand, and is about to enter at last upon the abiding things─those which one ought continually to hear─he sets before them this word, 'Finally,' that is, 'Always indeed and unto the end we beseech and exhort you in the Lord.'

Nor does he say that he himself is worthy of credit for the exhorting;

and yet who was so worthy of credit as he? But he takes Christ to his aid.

'Through God we exhort you,' he says.

For this is what 'in the Lord' means.

Which he also said to the Corinthians:

'God exhorts you through us.'

'That, even as you received from us.'

The word 'you received' pertains not only to words, but also to deeds.

The phrase 'how you ought to walk' signifies in this the whole conduct of life.

'And to please God, that you would abound more and more;'

that is, 'That out of a greater abundance you may not stop short at the commandments, but that you may even go beyond them;'

for this is the meaning of 'that you would abound.'

For in what precedes he accepts with admiration the wonder of their firm faith;

but here he regulates their manner of life.

to go beyond the commandments and the ordinances;

for the whole no longer comes about from the necessity of teaching, but from one's own free choice.

For just as the earth ought not merely to bear what has been sown in it;

so also the soul ought not to stop at those things that have been sown in it, but ought even to go beyond them.

Do you see that he rightly said 'to go beyond'? For virtue is divided into these two things: to turn away from evil, and to do good.

For withdrawal from evils does not suffice for the attainment of virtue, but it is a certain road and a beginning that leads there; yet we have need of much eagerness.

The things, then, that are to be shunned he tells them in the form of a charge, and rightly so;

for these things, when done, bring punishment, but when not done, bring not even praise.

The things of virtue, however─such as to empty out one's possessions, and whatever is of that kind─these he no longer speaks of in the form of a charge;

but what? 'He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.'

It is likely, then, that the things which he had charged them with much fear and trembling, he also reminds them of through these letters, calling them back to that reverent care.

Wherefore he does not set them down, but reminds them of them.

'For you know,' he says, 'what charges we gave you through our Lord Jesus Christ.'

'For this is the will of God, your sanctification.'

And observe how nowhere concerning any other matter does he hint so vehemently as concerning this;

just as also, writing elsewhere, he says:

Pursue peace with all men, and holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord.

And why do you wonder that he writes about this to his disciples everywhere, when even in writing to Timothy he said:

Keep yourself pure? And in the second Epistle to the Corinthians also, writing, he said:

In much patience, in fastings, in purity.

And in many places one may find this, both in the Epistle to the Romans and in all the Epistles.

For truly this evil brings ruin upon all men.

And just as a swine wallowing in mire fills with its stench everything it enters and crams its senses with filth, so too does fornication.

For this evil is hard to wash away.

But when some who even have wives do this, how great is the excess of its absurdity! For this, he says, is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from all fornication.

For many are the forms of disorder; manifold and varied are the pleasures of licentiousness, which it is not even tolerable to name.

But having said, From all fornication, he leaves the rest to those who understand.

That every one of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor.

Not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God.

That every one of you, he says, should know how to possess his own vessel.

So then the matter is one requiring instruction, and much instruction at that, in order that a man should not act licentiously.

So then we possess it, when it remains pure and is in sanctification;

but when it is unclean, it is sin.

For then it no longer does what we wish, but what that thing commands.

Not in the passion of lust, he says.

Here he shows also the manner in which one ought to exercise self-control, so as to cut off the passions of lust.

For indeed luxury, and wealth, and slackness, and idleness, and leisure, and all these things lead us out into unseemly desire.

Even as, he says, the Gentiles who know not God.

For those men are of such a sort, being men who do not expect to render account.

That he should not overreach and defraud his brother in the matter.

He said well, That he should not overreach;

for God apportioned to each man a wife, and set bounds to nature, namely, that union with the one woman.

So that intercourse with another woman is transgression and robbery and covetousness;

or rather, more grievous than any robbery.

For we are not so pained when our money is carried off, as when our marriage is broken into.

You call him brother, and do you defraud him, and in things wherein you ought not? Here he speaks of adultery;

but above, of all fornication as well.

For since he was about to say that one should not overreach nor defraud his brother, anticipating this he says, Do not think

that I say these things only concerning brethren; but you must not have the wives of others either, nor those women who are simply without husbands and common to all.

One must abstain from all fornication;

wherefore he says, Because the Lord is the avenger of all these things.

First he exhorted, then he shamed them by saying, Even as the Gentiles;

then from reasonings he showed the absurdity of the thing.

And this was the meaning of, To defraud his brother.

Then he adds finally the main point;

wherefore he says, The Lord is the avenger of all these things, even as we also told you beforehand and testified.

For we shall not do these things unpunished, nor shall we enjoy so much pleasure as the punishment we shall undergo.

For God has not called us unto uncleanness, but in sanctification.

Since he had said, His brother, and had added that God takes vengeance, showing that even if an unbeliever should suffer this, the one who has done it shall render punishment, he spoke thus:

He does not punish you by avenging that man, but because you have insulted Himself;

it was He who called you; you have insulted Him who called you.

Therefore he that despises, despises not man, but God, who has given His Holy Spirit unto us.

So that whether you corrupt the empress, he says, or your maidservant who has a husband, the charge is the same.

Why so? Because He avenges not the persons who are wronged, but Himself;

for you were defiled alike, you insulted God alike.

For both this and that is adultery, since both this and that is marriage;

and even if you commit not adultery, but fornication, although the harlot has no husband, yet nonetheless God avenges, since He avenges Himself.

For you do this not so much out of contempt for that man as for God;

for that man you wrong even while escaping his notice, but God, who sees, you disregard.

For tell me: if someone, deemed worthy of the purple by the king and of ten thousand other honors, and commanded to live worthily of the honor, should go off and defile himself with some woman, whom has he insulted? Her, or the king who gave the honor? She too has been insulted, but not in like manner.

Wherefore, I beseech you, let us guard against this sin.

For just as we punish our wives when, living with us, they give themselves to others;

so too are we punished, though not by the laws of the Romans, yet by God.

For indeed this too is adultery.

For adultery is not only when one commits it with a woman joined to another, but also when a man himself is bound to a wife.

For even if what is said is burdensome to many, yet it is necessary to say it, in order to set matters right for the future.

And this is not the only kind of adultery, when we corrupt a woman joined to a husband, but even if she be free and released, while we ourselves are bound to a wife, the deed is adultery.

For what does it matter, if the woman committed with is not bound? But you are bound;

you transgressed the law, you wronged your own flesh.

For why, tell me, do you punish your wife, even if she be defiled with a man who is free and has no wife? Because it is adultery.

And yet he who committed the act with her has no wife, but she is bound to a husband.

Then you too are bound to a wife.

So that likewise your act too is adultery.

For, he says, whosoever puts away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery;

and whosoever marries her that is put away commits adultery.

If he who marries her that is put away commits adultery, does not he who is with his own wife, and yet defiles himself with this other woman, do this much more? It is surely plain to everyone.

But as for you, the men, enough has been said on these matters.

For concerning such persons Christ also says, 'Their worm shall not die, and the fire shall not be quenched.'

But for the sake of the young it is necessary to speak to you—or rather, not so much on their account as on your own.

For these things are fitting not for them, but also for you; and how this is so, I will now tell you.

He who has not learned to commit fornication will not know how to commit adultery either;

but he who wallows among harlots will quickly come to this too;

and even if not with married women, yet he will corrupt himself with loose women.

What then do I advise? That you cut out the roots. As many of you as have young sons, and are about to lead them into worldly life, draw them quickly beneath the yoke of marriage.

For since, while they are still young, the promptings of desire trouble them, restrain them in the time before marriage by exhortations, by threats, by fears, by promises, and by countless other means;

but when the season of marriage arrives, let no one put it off (behold, I am speaking the words of a bridal matchmaker) to join your children in wedlock.

But I am not ashamed to say these things;

since not even Paul was ashamed to say, 'Do not deprive one another,' which seems to be more shameful than this;

for he was not attending to the words, but to the deeds that are accomplished by means of the words.

When therefore your boy has grown, before military service, before the rest of life, give thought to matters of marriage.

And if he sees that you are quickly bringing him his bride, and that the interval in between is short, he will be able to endure the flame;

but if he perceives that you are being negligent and slow and are waiting until he shall have acquired much income, and only then will you make his marriage, then, giving up hope because of the length of time, he will quickly slip into fornication. Here too the love of money is the root of evils.

The love of money is the root of the evils here as well.

For since no one cares how chaste, how virtuous the boy may become, but all are mad after gold, for this reason no one takes up this diligence.

Therefore I exhort you first to order their souls aright.

For if he comes to his bride in purity, if he beholds her body alone, both the longing will be intense and the fear of God the greater, and the marriage will be truly honorable, receiving pure and undefiled bodies; and the children born will be full of much blessing, and they will yield to one another, both the bridegroom and the bride;

for being each inexperienced in the other's ways, they will submit to one another.

But a young man who begins to be licentious and takes his experience from harlots' ways will, up to the first and second evening, praise his own wife;

but after that he will quickly slip back into that licentiousness, that unrestrained and disorderly laughter, seeking the words full of much indecency, the affected gestures, and every other unseemliness which it is not tolerable for us to mention.

But the free woman will not endure to provide these things, nor to defile herself.

For she was betrothed to the man for the fellowship of life and for the bearing of children, not for unseemliness and laughter;

that she may keep the house, that she may train him also to be reverent, not that she may furnish him kindling for fornication.

But do the harlot's postures appear pleasant to you? I too know it;

for the Scripture also says this:

'Honey drops from the lips of a harlot woman.'

It is for this very reason that I do all these things, that you may not take experience of that honey;

for it turns at once into gall.

And this very thing the Scripture also says:

'She for a time makes smooth your throat, but afterward you will find her more bitter than gall, and sharper than a two-edged sword.'

What do you say? Bear with me while I utter something even unclean, so to speak, and cast off shame and blush no more;

for I do not suffer this willingly, but because of those who are not ashamed of the deeds, I myself am compelled to speak the words.

And in the Scriptures too we see many such things.

For indeed Ezekiel, reproaching Jerusalem, utters many such things, and is not ashamed;

for he was not saying them out of his own passion, but out of solicitude.

For even though the words seem to be improper, yet the aim is not improper, but even exceedingly fitting for one who wishes to cast out the uncleanness of the soul;

for unless the shameless soul hears the very words, it is not put to shame.

For indeed a physician, wishing to cast out putrefaction, first thrusts his fingers into the wound; and unless he first soils his healing hands, he will not be able to cure it.

So I too, unless I first soil the mouth that heals your maladies, will not be able to heal you.

Or rather, neither is this soiled, nor are those hands.

Why so? Because the uncleanness is not natural, nor does it come from our own body—just as neither there does it come from his hands—but from things foreign to them.

Where there is another's body, that man does not refuse to dip his own hands;

where our body is concerned, shall we refuse, tell me? For you are our body—weak indeed and unclean, yet ours.

What then is it that I say, and for the sake of which I have made so long an exhortation? That a garment which the slave wears you would never choose to put on, loathing it because of the filth, but you would rather choose to be naked than to use it;

yet a body unclean and filthy, and serviceable not to your servant alone but to countless others, you will use to the full, and not loathe? Were you ashamed on hearing this? Rather, be ashamed in your deeds, not in the words.

And I pass over all the rest—the perverse and abominable character of her ways, the servile and ignoble quality of the rest of her life.

Tell me, do you go to the same woman, both you and your household slave? And would that it were the slave only—but even the executioner!

And the hands of the executioner you would not endure to grasp;

yet her who has become one body with him you embrace and kiss, and do not shudder nor fear? Are you not ashamed, not abashed, not in anguish? I said indeed to your fathers that they must quickly lead you to marriage;

but nevertheless neither are you free from responsibility for punishment.

For if there were not also many other young men living rather in self-control, both formerly and now, perhaps you would have some defense;

but if there are, whence will you be able to say, 'We could not restrain the flame of desire'? For those who were able condemn you, by their sharing in the same nature.

You hear Paul saying:

'Pursue peace and holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord.'

Is not this threat sufficient to strike fear? You see others being wholly chaste and passing their lives in reverence, and you cannot hold out even through the years of youth? You see others overthrowing pleasure ten thousand times, and you cannot endure even once? If you wish, I will tell you the cause.

It is not that all the young were bound to be intemperate;

but we ourselves thrust ourselves into the fire.

For when you go up into a theater, and sit feasting your eyes on the naked limbs of women, for the moment you were delighted, but afterward you have nourished from thence a mighty fever.

When you behold women appearing as it were in the very likeness of the body, when even the spectacles and the songs have nothing else but unnatural loves—'So-and-so,' it says, 'loved So-and-so, and did not obtain her, and hanged herself,' and monstrous passions rolled down even upon mothers—

when you receive these things through hearing, and through women, and through images, and now even through old men (for many, putting masks upon themselves, play the woman there), whence, tell me, will you be able henceforth to be chaste, when those narratives, those spectacles, those things heard hold fast your soul, and dreams of such a kind succeed them thereafter? For the soul is by nature apt for the most part to imagine such things as it wills and desires by day.

When therefore in that place you look upon shameful deeds, and hear yet more shameful words, and receive the wounds, but do not apply the remedies, how shall not the putrefaction reasonably grow? How shall not the disease be aggravated—and far more so than in the case of our bodies? For the will, if only we wished it, would admit the means of correction more lightly than the body does.

For there indeed drugs and physicians and time are needed;

but here it suffices merely to will, and one becomes both good and bad.

So that you the rather admitted the disease.

When therefore we heap together the things that harm, but make no account of the things that benefit, when will any health come? For this reason Paul also said, 'Even as the Gentiles who do not know God.'

Let us fear, if the nations that know not God are oftentimes chaste;

let us be put to shame, when we are worse than they.

It is easy to attain self-control, if we are willing, if we withdraw from the things that harm ourselves;

since not even to flee fornication is easy, if we are unwilling.

For what is easier than to walk to the marketplace? And yet

by reason of great sloth it has become difficult, not for women only, but now also for men.

What is easier than to sleep? Yet this too we have made difficult.

Many at least among the rich toss and turn throughout the whole night, because they do not wait for the need of sleep, and only then sleep.

And in short, nothing is difficult when we are willing, just as nothing is easy when we are unwilling.

For this reason also the Scripture says, 'If you are willing, and hearken to me;'

and again, 'If you are not willing,' it says, 'neither will you hearken to me.'

So that in willing and in not willing the whole matter lies.

For this reason also we are both punished and praised.

And may it be that we, having become of the number of those who are praised, obtain the promised good things, by the grace and lovingkindness, and so forth.