I. Chastity, the flower of morals, the honor of bodies, the ornament of the sexes, the integrity of the blood, the pledge of race, the foundation of holiness, a foretoken to all of a good mind—although rare, and not easily made perfect, and scarcely enduring—nevertheless in some measure used to linger in the world, if nature had prepared the way, if discipline had persuaded, if censure had restrained; seeing that every good of the soul is either born, or trained, or forced. But since evils rather prevail—which is the way of the last times—good things now can neither be born, so corrupted are the seeds, nor be trained, so abandoned are the studies, nor be forced, so disarmed are the laws.
In short, the very thing with which we begin has by now so faded away that not the abjuration but the mere moderation of lusts is believed to be chastity, and he is held to be sufficiently chaste who has not been too chaste. But let the world's chastity see to it, along with the world itself—along with its own nature if it was born, with its own study if it was trained, with its own servitude if it was forced; save that it would be even more unhappy, if it had stood firm, being fruitless, since it had not acted before God. I prefer no good at all to a vain one. What profit is there in a thing's existing, which profits nothing?
The state of our own goods is now being submerged; the principle of Christian chastity is being shaken—a chastity which draws all things from heaven: both nature, through the laver of regeneration, and discipline, through the instrument of preaching, and censure, through the judgments from either Testament, and which is more steadfastly constrained by the fear and the longing of the eternal fire and kingdom. Against this chastity now—lest I could pretend to be unaware—I hear that an edict too has been set forth, and a peremptory one at that. Namely, the Supreme Pontiff, the bishop of bishops, proclaims: 'I remit the sins of adultery and fornication to those who have performed penance.' O edict, to which cannot be appended: 'Well done!' And where shall this liberality be posted up?
In the very same place, I suppose—at the very doors of the lusts, beneath the very titles of the lusts. There is such a penitence to be promulgated, where the delinquency itself will be transacted. There is the pardon to be read, whither one will enter with the hope of it. But is this read in the church, and pronounced in the church—and she a virgin? Far be it, far be it from the bride of Christ, such a proclamation! She who is true, who is chaste, who is holy, shall be free even from the blemish of her ears. She has none to whom she may promise this; and if she had, she would not promise it—for the earthly temple of God could sooner be called a den of robbers by the Lord than of adulterers and fornicators.
There will therefore be here too a heading against the Psychics, against the former fellowship even of my own opinion in their company, so that they may the more cast this in my teeth as a mark of fickleness. Never is the repudiation of fellowship a prejudgment of fault. As though it were not easier to err with the many, whereas truth is loved with the few. But indeed a useful fickleness will no more dishonor me than a harmful one would have adorned me. I am not covered with confusion at an error which I have shed, because I delight to have shed it, because I recognize myself to be better and more chaste. No one making progress blushes. Knowledge too has its ages in Christ, through which the apostle also passed: 'When I was a little one,' he says, 'I spoke as a little one, I was wise as a little one; but when I became a man, I did away with the things that had been a little one's.'
So far did he [Paul] turn from his former opinions, and yet he did not thereby sin, because he became a zealot not of the paternal traditions but of the Christian ones, even wishing that those who urged that circumcision be retained might be cut off entirely. And would that these men too, who lop off the pure and true integrity of the flesh — amputating not the outermost surface but the innermost image of modesty itself — when they promise pardon to adulterers and fornicators against the foremost discipline of the Christian name (which the very pagan world too so far bears witness to that, if ever, it strives to punish it in our women rather by defilements of the flesh than by torments, wishing to snatch away that which they set before life itself).
But now this glory is being extinguished, and indeed by those very men who ought all the more steadfastly to have subscribed no pardon to stains of this kind — since for that reason, as often as they wish, let them marry, lest they be compelled to fall into adultery and fornication, because it is better to marry than to burn. Doubtless, for the sake of continence, incontinence is necessary; the fire shall be extinguished by fires! Why then do they afterward, under the name of penance, indulge crimes whose remedies they prescribe by the right of repeated marriage? For the remedies too will be idle when the crimes are indulged, and the crimes will remain if the remedies are idle.
So on both sides they trifle with solicitude and negligence, most vainly taking precautions against those they spare, and most foolishly sparing those against whom they take precautions — since either there should be no precaution where there is sparing, or no sparing where there is precaution. For they take precaution as though they would not have such a thing committed, yet they indulge as though they would have it committed; whereas, if they would not have it committed, they ought not to indulge; if they would indulge, they ought not to take precaution. For adultery and fornication will not be reckoned among both the slight and the greatest offences, so that both might apply — both the solicitude that takes precaution and the security that indulges. But since they are such as hold the summit of crimes, they cannot both be indulged as though slight and guarded against as though greatest.
But by us the greatest or highest offences are thus also guarded against, since we are not even permitted to know a second marriage after the faith — a marriage distinguished from the work of adultery and fornication only by nuptial and dowry tablets, if at all; and therefore, most harshly defaming us, they charge that by the enormity of the Paraclete's discipline we set the twice-married outside. The same threshold-limit we fix also for adulterers and fornicators, who shall pour out barren tears of peace and shall carry back from the Church nothing more than the publication of their disgrace. II. 'But God,' they say, 'is good and best and merciful and full of compassion and abundant in mercy, which He sets before every sacrifice, not accounting the death of the sinner of so much worth as his repentance — the Saviour of all men, and especially of the faithful.'
'Therefore the sons of God too must be merciful and peaceable, forgiving one another as Christ also forgave us, not judging, lest we be judged. For to his own Lord each one stands or falls: who art thou to judge another's servant? Forgive, and it shall be forgiven thee.' With how many contrary texts can we too beat back such and so great scattered sayings of theirs, by which they both flatter God and pander to themselves, effeminating rather than strengthening discipline — texts that both threaten God's severity and provoke our steadfastness? For although God is good by nature, yet He is also just.
For with cause, just as He knows how to heal, so also to smite; making peace, but also creating evils; preferring repentance, but also charging Jeremiah not to intercede for a sinful people. 'Even if they fast,' He says, 'I will not hear their supplication.' And again: 'And do thou not worship on behalf of this people, nor make request for them in entreaty and prayer, for I will not hear in the time in which they call upon Me, in the time of their affliction.' And still further above, the same God who prefers mercy to sacrifice [says]:
'And do thou not worship for this people, nor request that they obtain mercy, nor draw near to Me for them, for I will assuredly not hear those requesting mercy' — that is, those weeping from repentance and fasting and offering their affliction to God. For God is a jealous God, and one who is not mocked by the nose — namely by those who flatter His goodness — and who, though patient, yet through Isaiah threatens an end to His patience: 'I have kept silence; shall I also be silent forever and endure? I have been still as one giving birth; I will rise up and make [them] dry up.' For fire shall go forth before His face and shall consume His enemies, slaying in Gehenna not only the body but also the souls. Moreover, how the Lord threatens those who judge, He Himself shows:
'For with what judgment ye have judged, it shall be judged concerning you.' Thus He did not forbid judging, but taught it. Whence the apostle too judges — and indeed in a case of fornication — [saying] that such a man is to be delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, rebuking also that the brethren were not judged before the saints. For he adds, saying: 'For what have I to do to judge those who are outside?' But thou dost forgive, that it may be forgiven thee by God. Those offences are cleansed which one has committed against a brother, not against God. In the [Lord's] prayer, in short, we profess that we will forgive our debtors.
But it is not fitting to stretch further such a contentious rope of the authority of the Scriptures by alternate pulling in opposite directions, so that these texts seem to tighten the reins of discipline, those to loosen them — as though the discipline were uncertain — and those to lay low the aid of penance through leniency, these to deny it through austerity. Rather, both the authority of Scripture will stand within its own bounds without either opposition, and the aid of penance is determined by its own conditions without indiscriminate concession, and its very causes are first distinguished without confused statement. We stipulate that offences are the causes of penance. These we divide into two outcomes: some will be remissible, others irremissible.
Accordingly, it is doubtful to no one that some deserve chastisement, others damnation. Every offence is discharged either by pardon or by punishment — pardon from chastisement, punishment from damnation. Concerning this difference we have already set forth certain disputations of the Scriptures, here retaining, there remitting offences. But John too will teach: 'If anyone knows his brother to commit an offence not unto death, he shall ask, and life shall be given to him; because he does not offend unto death' — this will be remissible. 'There is an offence unto death; not for that do I say that one should ask' — this will be irremissible. Thus where there is ground for asking, there also is ground for remission; where there is none for asking, there likewise none for remission.
According to this difference of offences the condition of penance too is distinguished. One will be such as can obtain pardon — namely in a remissible offence; another such as can in no way obtain it — namely in an irremissible offence. And it remains to examine specifically concerning the status of adultery and fornication, into which category of offences they ought to be reduced. III. But first I will settle the objection interposed from the opposite side against that species of penance which we especially define as lacking pardon. 'For if,' they say, 'some penance lacks pardon, then it is not to be performed by thee at all. For nothing is to be done in vain. But penance will be performed in vain if it lacks pardon. Yet all penance is to be performed.'
'Therefore let all penance obtain pardon, lest it be performed in vain, since it will not be to be performed if it is performed in vain. But it is performed in vain if it will lack pardon.' Rightly, then, do they object thus, because they have arrogated to their own power the fruit of this penance too, that is, pardon. For as far as concerns those from whom human peace is obtained, it is performed in vain. But as far as concerns us, who remember that the Lord alone remits offences — and indeed mortal ones — it will not be performed in vain. For the penance being remitted to the Lord and the sinner thereupon prostrated before Him, will by this very fact the more effect pardon: because he begs it from God alone, because he does not believe that human peace suffices for his offence, because he prefers to blush before the Church rather than to commune with it.
For he stands before its doors and by the example of his mark admonishes the rest, and calls to himself also the tears of the brethren, and returns having assuredly gained more — compassion, namely, rather than communion. And if here he does not reap peace, with the Lord he sows. He does not lose, but prepares the fruit. He will not be void of profit, if he has not been void of duty. Thus neither is penance of this kind vain, nor is discipline of this kind harsh. Both honour God. The one, by flattering itself in nothing, will more easily obtain; the other, by assuming nothing to itself, will more fully help. IV. We can therefore, the distinction of penance having been assigned, now return to the reckoning of the offences themselves, whether they be such as can obtain pardon from men.
First of all, that we name adultery and fornication, usage requires. Faith too has a familiarity with certain names. So in every little work we keep to usage. But even if I say 'adultery' or 'defilement,' there will be one and the same designation of contaminated flesh. For it makes no difference whether one assails another's wife or a widow, provided she is not his own woman; just as it matters not concerning places, whether modesty be slaughtered in bedchambers or in towers. Every homicide is brigandage even outside the woodland. So too, wherever or in whatever woman a man adulterates and defiles himself, who uses her otherwise than by marriage.
Therefore with us, secret unions too — that is, those not first professed before the Church — are in danger of being judged as adultery and fornication, lest, being joined together on that footing, they should escape the charge under the pretext of matrimony. But the remaining impious furies of lusts, committed both against bodies and against sexes beyond the laws of nature, we remove not only from the threshold but from every roof of the Church, because they are not offences but monstrosities. V. Therefore, of how great a crime adultery — which is also the matter of fornication according to the work of the crime — is to be estimated, God's first law is at hand to show.
Indeed, after forbidding the superstition of strange gods and the fashioning of idols themselves, after commending the veneration of the Sabbath, after commanding the reverence toward parents second only to God, He laid down no other precept among such headings to be established and fortified than 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' For after spiritual chastity and holiness there followed bodily integrity. And this therefore He fortified by immediately prohibiting its enemy, adultery. Understand now what kind of offence it is, whose restraint He ordained after idolatry. Nothing 'second' is far from the 'first.' Nothing is so close to the first as the second. That which comes from the first is in a manner another first.
And so adultery, akin to idolatry — for idolatry too was often reproached to the people under the name of adultery and fornication — will be joined to it also by lot, as also by sequence; will also cohere with it in damnation, as also in arrangement. Placing 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' the more before it, He adds 'Thou shalt not kill.' He has assuredly honoured adultery, which He sets before homicide, thus on the very forefront of the most holy law, in the first headings of the heavenly edict, marked out assuredly by the proscription of the principal offences. From the place thou mayest discern the measure, from the order the status, from the neighbourhood the desert of each. There is even a dignity of evil, that it is placed at the summit or in the midst of the worst.
I behold a certain pomp and platform of adultery: on this side the leadership of idolatry going before, on that side the escort of homicide following. Between the two most eminent peaks of crimes it has without doubt worthily taken its seat, and it has filled the space between them, as though vacant, with an equal authority of crime. Who shall tear it away, enclosed by such flanks, propped about by such ribs, from the body of those cohering with it — from the bond of neighbouring crimes, from the embrace of kindred wickednesses — so as to separate it alone for the fruit of penance? Will not idolatry on this side, homicide on that, hold it back, and, if there be any voice, cry out in protest: 'This is our wedge, our joining!'
'By idolatry we are bounded; by it, as it marks us off, we are joined together; to it, flashing forth from our midst, we are united. The divine Scripture has embodied us together, the very letters are our glue, and now not even it [adultery] can stand without us. I indeed, Idolatry, most often furnish the occasion for adultery. My groves know it, and my mountains, and the living waters and the very temples in the cities — how much I contrive for the overthrow of chastity. I, Homicide, too, sometimes work for adultery. To pass over tragedies, the poisoners know today, the magicians know, how many concubinages I avenge, how many rivalries I defend, how many guardians, how many informers, how many accomplices I remove. The midwives too know how many adulterous conceptions are slaughtered.'
'Even among Christians there is no adultery without us. There is idolatry in the same place where there is the matter of an unclean spirit; there too is homicide, where a man, when he is defiled, is slain. Therefore either the aids of penance will befit not adultery either, or they will befit us too. Either we hold it back, or we follow it.' These very things speak thus. If the things fail in voice, the idolater stands by, the homicide stands by, and in the midst of them stands the adulterer too. Alike they sit in the duty of penance, they shudder in sackcloth and ashes, they groan with the same weeping, they entreat with the same prayers, they beseech on the same knees, they invoke the same mother. What art thou doing, O most soft and most humane discipline?
Either thou wilt have to be this to all of them — for 'blessed are the peacemakers' — or, if not to all, to be ours. Dost thou indeed condemn the idolater and the homicide once for all, but except the adulterer out of the midst? — the successor of the idolater, the predecessor of the homicide, the colleague of both? This is respecting of persons; thou hast left the more pitiable penances behind. VI. Plainly, if thou shouldst show from what patronage of heavenly examples and precepts thou openest the door of penance to adultery alone, and in it to fornication too, our conflict will now contend along this line. Yet I must needs prescribe to thee a rule: that thou put not forth thy hand to things of old, that thou look not back.
For 'the old things have passed away' according to Isaiah, and 'the renewal has now been renewed' according to Jeremiah, and 'forgetting the things behind, we stretch forward to the things before' according to the apostle, and 'the law and the prophets were until John' according to the Lord. For even though we have especially begun from the law in demonstrating adultery, we did so rightly, from that state of the law which Christ did not dissolve but fulfilled. For the burdens of the law were until John, not the remedies. The yokes of works have been cast off, not of disciplines. Liberty in Christ has done no injury to innocence. The whole law remains — of piety, holiness, humanity, truth, chastity, justice, mercy, benevolence, modesty — in which law 'blessed is the man who shall meditate day and night.' Concerning which the same David again says:
'The law of the Lord is blameless, converting souls; the ordinances of the Lord are right, delighting hearts; the precept of the Lord shines from afar, enlightening the eyes.' So too the apostle: 'And so the law indeed is holy, and the precept holy and most good' — that is, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' But also above: 'Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; rather we establish the law' — namely in those things which even now, forbidden in the New Testament, are prohibited by a yet more heaped-up precept. For 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' 'whoever has looked to lust, has already committed adultery in his heart'; and for 'Thou shalt not kill,' 'whoever has said to his brother Racha, shall be guilty of Gehenna.' Ask whether the law of not committing adultery is preserved, to which has been added not even coveting.
Moreover, if any examples applaud in your bosom, they will not be set against this discipline which we defend. For in vain has the law been built up over it, condemning also the origins of offences — that is, the concupiscences and wills — no less than the deeds, if for this reason pardon of adultery is granted today, because it was once granted. To what profit is it that today adultery is restrained by a fuller discipline, unless perhaps that it may be indulged with a greater pandering of thine? Thou wilt then give pardon to the idolater too and to every apostate, because we find the very people, so often guilty of these things, so often restored in time past. Thou wilt commune also with the homicide, because Ahab too blotted out the blood of Naboth by entreaty, and David purged the slaying of Uriah, together with his adultery which was its cause, by confession.
Now thou wilt also forgive incests on account of Lot, and fornications with incest on account of Judah, and base marriages contracted out of prostitution on account of Hosea, and not only frequent marriages but even several at once, on account of our fathers. For it is assuredly fitting that grace be now too made equal with regard to all things indulged in time past, if pardon of adultery be claimed from some ancient example. We too indeed have examples of the same antiquity for our position — not only of sin not indulged, but even of judgment on fornication made present. And it assuredly suffices that so great a number as twenty-four thousand of the people fornicating with the daughters of Midian fell in a single plague. But I prefer to derive discipline from Christ, to the glory of Christ.
Let the ancient times have had even the full power of all unchastity, if the Psychics wish it. Let the flesh have sported before Christ — nay, let it have perished before it was sought out by its Lord: it was not yet worthy of the gift of salvation, not yet fit for the office of holiness. It was still reckoned in Adam with its own vice, easily coveting what it had seen fair, and looking to lower things, and retaining the itch from the fig-leaves. There clung everywhere the poison of lust and the milky filth of its first uncleanness, not having that which not even the waters themselves had as yet washed away.
But when the Word of God descended into flesh not even unsealed by marriage, and the Word was made flesh not even to be unsealed by marriage — flesh which should approach the tree not of incontinence but of endurance, which should taste thence not something sweet but bitter, which should pertain not to the lower regions but to heaven, which should be girded not with the foliage of wantonness but with the flowers of holiness, which should hand over its purities to the waters — from then on the flesh, whatsoever in Christ dissolves the remaining former filth, is now another thing, a new thing emerges, now not from the mud of seed, not from the dung of concupiscence, but from pure water and a clean Spirit. Why then dost thou excuse it on the ground of the past?
It was not called the body of Christ, not the members of Christ, not the temple of God, when it obtained pardon of adultery. And so, if from the time when it changed its state, and being baptized into Christ it put on Christ and was redeemed at a great price — namely by the blood of the Lord and of the Lamb — thou holdest any example or precept or pattern or sentence of fornication and adultery indulged or to be indulged, thou hast also from us a definition of the time from which the age of the question is to be reckoned. VII. Thou mayest begin from the parables, where there is the lost sheep sought by the Lord and carried back on His shoulders.
Let the very pictures of your cups come forth, to see whether even in them the interpretation of that beast will shine through — whether it aims at the restoration of a Christian or of a heathen sinner. For we lay down, from the discipline of nature, from the law of ear and tongue, from soundness of mind, that those things are always answered which are provoked, that is, in reference to the things that provoke. That provoked the parable, as I suppose, which was that the Pharisees murmured, indignant that the Lord admitted publicans and heathen sinners, and shared food with them. To this the Lord spoke the restoration of the lost beast — to whom else must we believe it was figured than to the lost heathen, of whom it was a question, not to the Christian, who as yet was no one?
Or what kind of thing is it, that the Lord, like a quibbler of a reply, having passed over the present matter which He ought to have beaten back, should labour about a future one? But you say, 'the sheep is properly the Christian, and the flock the Lord's people of the Church, and the good shepherd Christ, and therefore the Christian is to be understood in the sheep, who has strayed from the flock of the Church.' Dost thou then mean that the Lord answered nothing to the murmuring of the Pharisees, but only to thy presumption? And yet thou wilt have to claim it in such a way that thou deniest to apply to the heathen what thou judgest to befit the Christian. Tell me, is not the whole race of men one flock of God? Is not the same God both Lord and shepherd of all nations? Who is more lost from God than the heathen, as long as he strays?
Who is more sought by God than the heathen, when he is recalled by Christ? In short, this order goes first in the heathen; since Christians are not made out of heathen otherwise than by first being lost and sought out by God and carried back by Christ. Thus this order too ought to be observed, that we should interpret some such thing of those in whom it happens first. But thou, I suppose, wouldst have this — that He made the sheep lost not from the flock, but from a chest or a cupboard.
So, even though He calls the remaining number of the heathen righteous, He does not thereby show them to be Christians — for He was dealing with the Jews and especially rebuking them because they were indignant at the hope of the heathen; but, in order to express, against the envy of the Pharisees, His own grace and benevolence even toward one heathen, He set the salvation of one sinner from repentance before that of them the Jews from righteousness. Or were not the Jews righteous, and such as had no need of repentance, having the helms of discipline and the instruments of fear — the law and the prophets? He set them, therefore, in the parable, though not such as they were, but such as they ought to have been, that they might be the more abashed, hearing that repentance was necessary for others and not for themselves.
Accordingly the parable of the drachma, as provoked from the same matter, we likewise interpret of the heathen — even though it is lost in the house, as though in the Church, even though found at the light of a lamp, as though at the word of God. But indeed this whole world is one house of all, in which the grace of God shines more upon the heathen, who is found in darkness, than upon the Christian, who is already in the light of God. In short, to both the sheep and the drachma one straying is ascribed. For if they were figured as applying to a Christian sinner already lost after the faith, it would be a matter of their repeated loss and restoration. I will now for a little withdraw from this position, that I may the more commend it even by withdrawing, since even thus I shall have refuted the presumption of the opposite party.
I concede that a Christian sinner is portended in each parable; not, however, that he is therefore to be affirmed to be one who can be restored through penance from the crime of adultery and fornication. For although he is said to have perished, there will be reason to reconsider also the kind of perishing, because the sheep perished not by dying but by straying, and the drachma not by ceasing to be but by lying hidden. Thus that may be said to have perished which is yet safe.