I beg you, dearest brethren, that we may more attentively consider the cause of our salvation, and that we may be able to escape all those evils which are written concerning the judgment to come, and may happily attain to that blessedness which has been promised to us. As far as we are able, with our strength and with God's help, let us strive with all the intention of our soul to keep charity, justice, mercy, and likewise chastity, so that by these, as by a heavenly and spiritual chariot, we may be carried off to the principal fatherland of paradise. Let us go thither for now in our heart, so that, when the day of judgment comes, we may follow also in body; and that there may be fulfilled in us that which the Apostle says: 'But our citizenship is in heaven' (Phil. 3:20); and this:
'When Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then you also shall appear with him in glory' (Col. 3:4). Let us therefore love none of those four virtues less than is fitting: for what does it profit you if you seem to have charity, but are unwilling to have justice? Or who will be able to help you if you say you have mercy, but by not having chastity you hold yourself in hatred, according to that which is written: 'He who loves iniquity hates his own soul' (Ps. 10:6)? And because we recognize that very few are willing to have chastity, we now more attentively admonish your charity concerning it, on account of that which is written: 'Neither fornicators, nor the effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind shall possess the kingdom of God' (1 Cor. 6:9-10); and this:
'Neither adulterers, nor drunkards shall possess the kingdom of God' (cf. 1 Cor. 6:10); but what is worse, there are many who seem to have wives, and, at the devil's persuading, feign to guard chastity, but are so inflamed with the fury of lust — whether with their own or with others' maidservants — that they are not ashamed to commit adultery in such a way that they neither fear God nor reverence man. But it were just, brethren, that among those who are such, our so frequent admonitions of so many years ought to profit, so that they might not make wounds for themselves out of medicines, nor slay themselves by that whereby they could have been made alive; because the priest's chastisement, as it is to the obedient unto glory, so to the disobedient it will be unto punishment;
and because those men, as I have already said, neither reverence God nor fear man, you who, by Christ's inspiration, faithfully guard both faith and chastity — if ever you come to know that any commit such sacrilegious sins, chastise them both once and a second and a third time; and if they refuse to hear you, neither hold conversation with them, nor invite them to your banquet, nor take food with them at the tables of others; according to that which the Apostle says of such: 'with a man of this sort not even to take food' (cf. 1 Cor. 5:11), that in this way at least they may be ashamed, while they see themselves execrated by the honorable and by those who fear God.
For if what I suggest is not done, whoever he is who knows his brother or neighbor to be committing adultery, if he is unwilling to reprove him, he will be a partaker with him, according to that which is written: 'If you saw a thief, you ran along with him, and with adulterers you set your portion' (Ps. 50:18); and that which the Apostle says: 'Not only those who do these things, but also those who consent to those who do them' (Rom. 1:32). But those who neither themselves reprove adulterers nor more discreetly bring them to the priest's notice give us the suspicion that they do not reprove them for this reason: because they themselves commit such sins. For me it is enough that with great sorrow of soul and boundless groaning I cry out;
but you, if you wish to be free both from your own sins and from those of others, do not spare such men; or if, when you admonish them more discreetly and more frequently, they refuse to hear, cause this to come to the notice of our lowliness, according to that which the Lord said of sinners in the Gospels: 'Reprove him between you and him alone; if he hears you, you have gained your brother; but if he does not hear you, tell the Church' (cf. Matt. 18:15-17) — that is, bring it to the priest's notice: 'if he will not hear the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican.'
But what is worse: while those who commit so great an evil are, by some, not only not reproved, but even flattered and blandly received, therefore those very sacrilegious crimes are nourished and perpetrated without any fear or shame; but we ought to fear that which is written of Achan, who had stolen the golden bar from Jericho: when, for the sin of one man, the wrath of God raged against all Israel, and the fury of God did not subside from the people until he who had done the evil was, by the Lord's command, ground to pieces (cf. Josh. 7).
For since those of whom we speak wish to have chaste wives, with what conscience do they commit nefarious adulteries, and say that what is by no means lawful for them is lawful, as if God had given some precepts to men and others to women? Let whoever he is say by what permitting law he commits these crimes, since by both divine and human law all adultery is punished. Yet this evil is not forbidden for this reason, that it is committed by males, but by however much less it is distinguished among men, by so much the more grievously is it avenged by the divine judgment. For what sort of thing is it, that some who break out into this shamelessness say that these so cruel evils are lawful for men, and not lawful for women;
nor do they attend to the fact that both man and woman are alike redeemed by the blood of Christ, and are together washed in the sacred laver, receive together the blood of the Lord, and there is with God no distinction of male and female, nor is God a respecter of persons. Therefore what is not lawful for women was likewise never lawful for men, nor will it ever be able to be lawful; but because an unhappy custom has been introduced, that if a wife is found with a servant, she is punished, but if a man wallows with many maidservants in the cesspool of lust, he is not only not punished, but is even praised by those like himself, and, speaking to one another, they confess with laughter and most foolish guffawing which of them has done more of this.
But the laughter of these men on the day of judgment will be turned into mourning, and their jests will be turned into wounds. But this those men do who neither believe at all in the judgment to come, nor fear it. For I with a free conscience cry out and equally testify, that whoever, having a wife, commits adultery — unless prolonged penance and abundant almsgiving come to his aid, and he has not ceased from that very sin, and if, as commonly happens, he suddenly dies — will perish forever. Nor will the name of Christian profit him, because he not only did not perform what the Lord commanded, but even perpetrated crimes against his precepts.
For since even to know one's own wife, apart from the desire for children, is sin, what do they think of themselves, or what hope can they promise themselves, who, having wives, by adultery prepare for themselves that whereby they may descend into the depths of hell, and are unwilling to hear the Apostle saying: 'The time is short; it remains that those who have wives be as though they had none' (1 Cor. 7:29); and this: 'That each one know how to possess his vessel in honor and sanctification, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles also who know not God' (1 Thess. 4:4-5).
Consider that those who use their wives, apart from the desire for children, cannot be without sin unless they give assiduous almsgiving; so that if this is said of lawful matrimony, what do you think will befall on the day of judgment those who presume, without any consideration of the fear of God, to commit either public or hidden adulteries — of whom it is written: 'Fornicators and adulterers God will judge' (Heb. 13:4); and that saying of the Apostle already mentioned above: 'Neither shall adulterers possess the kingdom of God'? What does it profit you, wretch, whoever you are, that you are called a Christian, if through the sin of adultery you have deserved to be excluded from the kingdom of God?
And this I ask, dearest brethren, and I admonish your charity: that whoever are about to take wives should guard their virginity until marriage; for just as there is no one who would wish to receive a violated bride, so no one ought before marriage to corrupt himself by adulterous intercourse. But what is worse, there are many who take concubines to themselves before they take wives; and because the multitude is great, the bishop cannot excommunicate them all, but with groaning and many sighs he tolerates it, and waits to see whether perhaps the merciful and compassionate Lord may grant them fruitful penance through which they may be able to attain to pardon.
And because this evil has been let into custom, so that it is thought not to be a sin, behold, before God and his saints I profess that, whether before a wife or after a wife, whoever takes a concubine to himself commits adultery; and this is a worse adultery: because, since it is by no reason lawful, he commits it publicly, without any shame, as though by law. Finally, from this too we recognize that it is no light sin, that whomever those very concubines conceive are born not free but slaves; whence, after freedom has been received, are they by no law and by no order permitted to have the father's inheritance? Consider also whether it can be without sin, where
the honor of noble blood is so humbled that from most noble men slaves are born, whether this can be without sin. For it is so grave a sin that, in the Roman city, whoever wishes to take a wife, if he knows himself not to be a virgin, does not at all presume to come to receive the nuptial blessing; and now consider how hard it is that with her whom he desires to marry he does not merit to receive the blessing. But when we suggest these things, I fear lest there be some who would rather be angry with us than with themselves. For our sermon is set before your charity like a mirror;
and therefore, just as a matron, when she looks into a mirror, corrects in herself rather whatever she has seen amiss, and does not break the mirror, so also let each of you, as often as in any preaching he recognizes his own foulness, — it is just that he should rather correct himself than wish to be angry against the preaching as against a mirror. Just as those too who receive some blows would rather cure their wounds than despise the remedies; lest, therefore, from this also anyone should sin doubly, if he should wish to be angry against spiritual remedies, let him accept what is said not only patiently but even gladly: because he is now known to be turning aside from evil in that other respect too, whoever is willing gladly to accept wholesome chastisement;
And to him whose own evils displease him, let those things also that are good now be pleasing; and thus, in the measure that he has separated himself from vices, so far will he draw near to the virtues — which may He deign to grant who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.