(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all mistakes found.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing intially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.

TERTULLIAN.

ON MODESTY.[1]

[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. THELWALL.]

   MODESTY, the flower of manners, the honour of our bodies, the grace of
the sexes, the integrity of the blood, the guarantee of our race, the basis
of sanctity, 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.

   But as the conquering power of things evil is on the increase--which is
the characteristic of the last times[2]--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 dined are the
laws. 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 believed to be; and he is
held to be chaste enough who has not been too chaste. But let the
world's[3] modesty see to itself, together with the world[4] 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 existence profits not? It is our own good things
whose position is now sinking; it is the system of Christian modesty which
is being shaken to its foundation--(Christian modesty), which derives its
all from heaven; its nature, "through the layer of regeneration;"[5] 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 eternal fire or kingdom.[6]

   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 Pontifex Maximus[7]--that is, the bishop of bishops[8]--issues an
edict: "I remit, to such as have discharged (the requirements of)
repentance, the sins both of adultery and of fornication." O edict, on
which cannot be inscribed, "Good deed!" 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 virgin! Far,
far from Christ's betrothed be such a proclamation! She, the true, 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 "den of robbers,"[1] than of adulterers and fornicators.

   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 sin. As if it were not easier to err with the majority, when
it is in the company of the few that truth 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 error 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 Christ, knowledge had its stages of growth;[2] through
which stages the apostle, too, passed. "When I was a child," he says, "as a
child I spake, as a child I understood; but when I became a man, those
(things) which had been the child's I abandoned:"[3] so truly did he turn
away from his early opinions: nor did he sin by becoming an emulator not of
ancestral but of Christian traditions,[4] wishing even the prae-cision of
them who advised the retention of circumcision.[5] And would that the same
fate might befall those, too, who obtruncate the pure and true 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 Christian Name; a discipline
to which heathendom itself bears such emphatic witness, that it strives to
punish that discipline in the persons of Our females rather by defilements
of the flesh than tortures; wishing to wrest from them that which they hold
dearer than life! But now this glory 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 fear of
succumbing to adultery and fornication their reason for marrying as often
as they please--since "better it is to marry than to burn."[6] No doubt it
is for continence sake that incontinence is necessary--the "burning" will
be extinguished by "fires!" 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,
adultery and fornication will not be ranked at the same time among the
moderate and among the greatest sins, 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 us precaution is thus also taken against the greatest,
or, (if you will), highest (crimes, viz.,) in that it is not permitted,
after believing, to know even a second marriage, differentiated though it
be, to be sure, from the work of adultery and fornication by the nuptial
and dotal tablets: and accordingly, with the utmost strictness, we
excommunicate digamists, as bringing infamy 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 Church no ampler return than the publication
of their disgrace.

CHAP. II.--GOD JUST AS WELL AS MERCIFUL; ACCORDINGLY, MERCY MUST NOT BE
INDISCRIMINATE.

   "But," say they, "God is 'good,' and 'most good,'[7] and 'pitiful-
hearted,' and 'a pitier,' and 'abundant in pitiful-heartedness,'[8] which
He holds 'dearer than all sacrifice,'[9] 'not thinking the sinner's death
of so much worth as his repentance,[10] 'a Saviour of all men, most of all
of believers.'[11] And so it will be becoming for 'the sons of God'[12] too
to be 'pitiful-hearted'[13] and 'peacemakers;'[14] 'giving in their turn
just as Christ withal hath given to us;'[1] 'not judging, that we be not
judged.'[2] For 'to his own lord a man standeth or falleth; who art thou,
to judge another's servant?'[3] 'Remit, and remission shall be made to
thee.'"[4] 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 "severity"[5]
of God, and provoke our own constancy? Because, albeit God is by nature
good, still He is "just"[6] too. For, from the nature of the case, just as
He knows how to "heal," so does He withal know how to "smite;"[7] "making
peace," but withal "creating evils;"[8] preferring repentance, but withal
commanding Jeremiah not to pray for the aversion of ills on behalf of the
sinful People,--"since, if they shall have fasted," saith He, "I will not
listen to their entreaty."[9] And again: "And pray not thou unto (me) on
behalf of the People, and request not on their behalf in prayer and
supplication, since I will not listen to (them) in the time wherein they
shall have invoked me, in the time of their affliction."[10] And further,
above, the same preferrer of mercy above sacrifice (says): "And pray not
thou 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)"[11] of course when they sue for mercy, when out of
repentance they weep and fast, and when they offer their self-affliction to
God. For God is "jealous,"[12] and is One who is not contemptuously
derided[13]--derided, namely, by such as flatter His goodness--and who,
albeit "patient,"[14] yet threatens, through Isaiah, an end of (His)
patience. "I have held my peace; shall I withal always hold my peace and
endure? I have been quiet as (a woman) in birth-throes; I will arise, and
will make (them) to grow arid."[15] For "a fire shall proceed before His
face, and shall utterly burn His enemies;"[16] striking down not the body
only, but the souls too, into hell.[17] Besides, the Lord Himself
demonstrates the manner in which He threatens such as judge: "For with what
judgment ye judge, judgment shall be given on you."[18] Thus He has not
prohibited judging, but taught (how to do it). Whence the apostle withal
judges, and that in a case of fornication,[19] that "such a man must be
surrendered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh;"[20] chiding them
likewise because "brethren" were not "judged at the bar of the saints:"[21]
for he goes on and says, "To what (purpose is it) for me to judge those who
are without?" "But you remit, in order that remission may be granted you by
God." The sins which are (thus) cleansed are such as a man may have
committed against his brother, not against God. We profess, in short, in
our prayer, that we will grant remission to our debtors;[22] 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 sins. 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 sin 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 Scriptures, on one hand retaining, on the other remitting, sins;[23]
but John, too, will teach us: "If any knoweth his brother to be sinning a
sin not unto death, he shall request, and life shall be given to him ;"
because he is not "sinning unto death," this will be remissible. "(There)
is a sin unto death; not for this do I say that any is to request"[24]--
this will be irremissible. So, where there is the efficacious power of
"making request," there likewise is that of remission: where there is no
(efficacious power) of "making request," there equally is none of remission
either. According to this difference of sins, the condition of repentance
also is discriminated. There will be a condition which may possibly obtain
pardon,--in the case, namely, of a remissible sin: there will be a
condition which can by no means obtain it,--in the case, namely, of an
irremissible sin. And it remains to examine specially, with regard to the
position of adultery and fornication, to which class of sins they ought to
be assigned.

CHAP. III.--AN OBJECTION ANTICIPATED BEFORE THE DISCUSSION ABOVE PROMISED
IS COMMENCED.

   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. "Why, if," say they,
"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 all repentance is to be practised. Therefore let (us allow
that) all 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." 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
they are concerned, at whose hands (repentance) obtains man's peace, (it is
in vain). As regards us, however, who remember that the Lord alone concedes
(the pardon of) sins, (and of course of mortal ones,) it will not 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 from God alone,
that it believes not that man's peace is adequate to its guilt, that as far
as regards the Church 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 honour 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.

CHAP. IV.--ADULTERY AND FORNICATION SYNONYMOUS.

   Having defined the distinction (between the kinds) of repentance, we
are by this time, then, able to return to the assessment of the sins--
whether they be such as can obtain pardon at the hand of men. In the first
place, (as for the fact) that we call adultery likewise fornication, usage
requires (us so to do). "Faith," 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 "adulterium," and if "stuprum," 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 widow,
provided it be not his own "female;" 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 woman, makes himself guilty of adultery and fornication.
Accordingly, among us, secret connections as well--connections, that is,
not first professed in presence of the Church--run risk of being judged
akin to adultery 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 passions--impious both toward the bodies and toward the sexes--
beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold, but from
all shelter of the Church, because they are not sins, but monstrosities.

CHAP. V.--OF THE PROHIBITION OF ADULTERY IN THE DECALOGUE.

   Of how deep guilt, then, adultery--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 true, (as it is),
that after interdicting the superstitious service of alien gods, and the
making of idols themselves, after commending (to religious observance) the
veneration of the Sabbath, after commanding a religious regard toward
parents second (only to that) toward God, (that Law) laid, as the next
substratum in strengthening and fortifying such counts, no other precept
than "Thou shall not commit adultery." For after spiritual chastity and
sanctity followed corporeal integrity. And this (the Law) accordingly
fortified, by immediately prohibiting its foe, adultery. Understand,
consequently, what kind of sin (that must be), the repression of which (the
Law) ordained next to (that of) idolatry. Nothing that is a second is
remote from the first; nothing is so dose to the first as the second. That
which results from the first is (in a sense) another first. And so adultery
is bordering on idolatry. For idolatry withal, often cast as a reproach
upon the People under the name of adultery and fornication, will be alike
conjoined therewith in fate as in following--will be alike co-heir
therewith in condemnation as in co-ordination. Yet further: premising "Thou
shalt not commit adultery," (the Law) adjoins, "Thou shalt not kill." It
honoured adultery, of course, to which it gives the precedence over murder,
in the very fore-front of the most holy law, among the primary counts of
the celestial edict, marking it with the inscription of the very principal
sins. From its place you may discern the measure, from its rank the
station, from its neighbourhood the merit, of each thing. Even evil 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 adultery: on the one side, Idolatry goes before and leads the way; on
the other, Murder follows in company. Worthily, without doubt, 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: "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; witness 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, witness nowadays the
poisoners, witness 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 Christians there is no
adultery without us. Wherever the business of the unclean spirit is, there
are idolatries; wherever a man, by being polluted, is slain, there too is
murder. Therefore the remedial aids of repentance will not be suitable to
them, or else they will likewise be to us. We either detain Adultery, or
else follow her." These words the sins themselves do speak. If the sins 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 prayers they make
their circuits; with the self-same knees they supplicate; the self-same
mother they invoke. What doest thou, gentlest and humanest Discipline?
Either to all these will it be thy duty so to be, for "blessed are the
peacemakers;"[1] or else, if not to all, it will be thy duty to range
thyself on our side. Dost thou 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 "an accepting of person:"[2] the more pitiable
repentances thou hast left (unpitied) behind!

CHAP. VI.--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.

   Plainly, if you show by what patronages of heavenly precedents and
precepts it is that you open to adultery alone--and therein to fornication
also--the gate of repentance, at this very line our hostile encounter will
forthwith cross swords. Yet I must necessarily prescribe you a law, not to
stretch out your hand after the old things,[3] not to look backwards:[4]
for "the old things are passed away,"[5] according to Isaiah; and "a
renewing hath been renewed,"[6] according to Jeremiah; and "forgetful of
former things, we are reaching forward,"[7] according to the apostle; and
"the law and the prophets (were) until John,"[8] according to the Lord. For
even if we are just now beginning with the Law in demonstrating (the nature
of) adultery, it is justly with that phase of the law which Christ has "not
dissolved, but fulfilled."[9] For it is the "burdens" of the law which were
"until John," not the remedial virtues. It is the "yokes" of "works" that
have been rejected, not those of disciplines.[1] "Liberty in Christ"[2] has
done no injury to innocence. The law of piety, sanctity, humanity, truth,
chastity, justice, mercy, benevolence, modesty, remains in its entirety; in
which law "blessed (is) the man who shall meditate by day and by night."[3]
About that (law) the same David (says) again: "The law of the Lord (is)
unblameable[4] converting souls; the statutes of the Lord (are) direct,
delighting hearts; the precept of the Lord far-shining, enlightening eyes."
Thus, too, the apostle: "And so the law indeed is holy, and the precept
holy and most good"[5]--"Thou shalt not commit adultery," of course. But he
had withal said above: "Are we, then, making void the law through faith?
Far be it; but we are establishing the law "[6]--forsooth in those (points)
which, being even now interdicted by the New Testament, are prohibited by
an even more emphatic precept: instead of, "Thou shalt not commit
adultery," "Whoever shall have seen with a view to concupiscence, hath
already committed adultery in his own heart; "[7] and instead of, "Thou
shalt not kill," "Whoever shall have said to his brother, Racha, shall be
in danger of hell."[8] Ask (yourself) whether the law of not committing
adultery 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 origin even of sins-
-that is, concupiscences and wills--no less than the actual deeds; if the
fact that pardon was of old in some cases conceded to adultery is to be a
reason why it shall be conceded at the present day. "What will be the
reward attaching to the restrictions imposed upon the more fully developed
discipline of the present day, except that the eider (discipline) may be
made the agent for granting indulgence to your prostitution?" In that case,
you will grant pardon to the idolater too, and to every apostate, 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;[9] and David, by confession, purged Uriah's slaughter,
together with its cause--adultery.[10] That done, you will condone incests,
too, for Lot's sake;[11] and fornications combined with incest, for Judah's
sake;[12] and base marriages with prostitutes, for Hosea's sake;[13] and
not only the frequent repetition of marriage, but its simultaneous
plurality, for our fathers' sakes: for, of come, it is meet that there
should also be a perfect equality of grace in regard of all deeds to which
indulgence was in days bygone granted, if on the ground of some pristine
precedent pardon is claimed for adultery. 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.[14] But, with an eye to the
glory of Christ, I prefer to derive (my) discipline from Christ. Grant that
the pristine days may have had--if the Psychics please--even a right of
(indulging) every immodesty; grant that, before Christ, the flesh may have
disported itself, nay, may have perished before its Lord went to seek and
bring it back: not yet was it worthy of the gift of salvation; not yet apt
for the office of sanctity. It was still, up to that time, accounted as
being in Adam, with its own vicious nature, easily indulging concupiscence
after whatever it had seen to be "attractive to the sight,"[15] and looking
back at the lower things, and checking its itching with fig-leaves.[16]
Universally inherent was the virus of lust--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 Word of God descended into
flesh,--(flesh) not unsealed even by marriage,--and "the Word was made
flesh,"[17]--(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
holiness;[18] which was to impart to the waters its own purities--
thenceforth, whatever flesh (is) "in Christ"[19] 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 "pure water" and a "clean Spirit." And, accordingly,
why excuse it on the ground of pristine precedent? It did not bear the
names of "body of Christ,"[1] of "members of Christ,"[2] of "temple of
God,"[3] at the time When it used to obtain pardon for adultery. And thus
if, from the moment when it changed its condition, and "having been
baptized into Christ put on Christ,"[4] and was "redeemed with a great
price"--"the blood," to wit, "of the Lord and Lamb"[5]--you take hold of
any one precedent (be it precept, or law, or sentence,) of indulgence
granted, or to be granted, to adultery and fornication,--you have likewise
at our hands a definition of the time from which the age of the question
dates.

CHAP. VII.--OF THE PARABLES OF THE LOST EWE AND THE LOST DRACHMA.

   You shall have leave to begin with the parables, where you have the
lost ewe re-sought by the Lord, and carried back on His shoulders.[6] 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 Christian or heathen 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 Pharisees were
muttering in indignation at the Lord's admitting to His society heathen
publicans 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 heathen, about whom
the question was then in hand,--not about a Christian, who up to that time
had no existence? 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? "But a
'sheep' properly means a Christian,[7] and the Lord's 'flock' is the people
of the Church,[8] and the 'good shepherd' is Christ;[9] and hence in the
'sheep' we must understand a Christian who has erred from the Church's
'flock.'" In that case, you make the Lord to have given no answer to the
Pharisees' 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 Christians are referable to a heathen. Tell me, is not all
mankind one flock of God? Is not the same GOD both Lord and Shepherd of the
universal nations?[10] Who more "perishes" from God than the heathen, so
long as he "errs?" Who is more "re-sought" by God than the heathen, when he
is recalled by Christ? In fact, it is among heathens that this order finds
antecedent place; if, that is, Christians are not otherwise made out of
heathens than by being first "lost," and "re-sought" by God, and "carried
back" 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 heathens "righteous," it does
not follow that He shows them to be Christians; dealing as He is with Jews,
and at that very moment refuting them, because they were indignant at the
hope of the heathens. But in order to express, in opposition to the
Pharisees' envy, His own grace and goodwill even in regard of one heathen,
He preferred the salvation of one sinner by repentance to theirs by
righteousness; or else, pray, were the Jews not "righteous," and such as
"had no need of repentance," having, as they had, as pilotages of
discipline and instruments of fear, "the Law and the Prophets?" He set them
therefore in the parable--and if not such as they were, yet such as they
ought to have been--that they migh blush the more when they heard that
repentance was necessary to others, and not to themselves.

   Similarly, the parable of the drachma,[11] as being called forth out of
the same subject-matter, we equally interpret with reference to a heathen;
albeit it had been "lost" in a house, as it were in the church; albeit
"found" by aid of a "lamp," as it were by aid of God's word.[12] Nay, but
this whole world is the one house of all; in which world it is more the
heathen, who is found in darkness, whom the grace of God enlightens, than
the Christian, who is already in God's light.[13] Finally, it is one
"straying" which is ascribed to the ewe and the drachma: (and this is an
evidence in my favour); for if the parables had been composed with a view
to a Christian sinner, after the loss of his faith, a second loss and
restoration of them would have been noted.

   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 parable is one who is already a
Christian; 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 adultery and
fornication. For although he be said to "have perished," there will be the
kind of perdition to treat of; inasmuch as the "ewe" "perished" not by
dying, but by straying; and the "drachma" not by being destroyed, but by
being hidden. In this sense, a thing which is safe may be said to "have
perished." Therefore the believer, too, "perishes," 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 "arts of curiosity" to sports, to the
convivialities of heathen solemnity, to official exigence, to the ministry
of another's idolatry; if he has impaled himself upon some word of
ambiguous denial, or else of blasphemy. For some such cause he has been
driven outside the flock; or even himself, perhaps, by anger, by pride, 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 "perish," unless it persist
in remaining outside. You will well interpret the parable by recalling the
sinner while he is still living. But, for the adulterer and fornicator, I
who is there who has not pronounced him to be dead immediately upon
commission of the crime? With what face will you restore to the flock one
who is dead, on the authority of that parable which recalls a sheep not
dead?

   Finally, if you are mindful of the prophets, when they are chiding the
shepherds, there is a word--I think it is Ezekiel's: "Shepherds, hold, ye
devour the milk, and clothe you with the fleeces: what is strong ye have
slain; what is weak ye have not tended; what is shattered ye have not
bound; what has been driven out ye have not brought back; what has perished
ye have not re-sought."[1] Pray, does he withal upbraid them at all
concerning that which is dead, 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 "perish mortally," or be "eaten up," if they are
left remaining. "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
God, the Church) there may be some sins 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, forthwith
are brought to an end in the same with the joy of amendment?" But of
adultery 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 Church; nor does he
remain there; nor does he cause joy to the Church which discovers him, but
grief; nor does he invite the congratulation of her neighbours, but the
fellowship in sadness of the surrounding fraternities.

   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 heathen, that they cannot possibly apply to the Christian
guilty of the sin for the sake of which they are wrested into a forced
application to the Christian on the opposite side.

CHAP. VIII.--OF THE PRODIGAL SON.

   But, however, the majority of interpreters of the parables 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 believe yourself to have
succeeded in skilfully giving vividness to their mutual combination;
presently, when each body (of colour) and (the various) lights are fully
developed, the convicted diversity will expose all the error. In the self-
same darkness, accordingly, with regard to the parable 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
true light of that comparison which the subject-matter of the parable
presents. For they set down, as represented in the two sons, two peoples--
the eider the Jewish, the younger the Christian: for they cannot in the
sequel arrange for the Christian sinner, in the person of the younger son,
to obtain pardon, unless in the person of the eider 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 Christian will not be admissible (as represented) by the joint figure
of the younger son. For although the Jew withal be called "a son," and an
"elder one," inasmuch as he had priority in adoption;[2] although, too, he
envy the Christian the reconciliation of God the Father,--a point which the
opposite side most eagerly catches at,--still it will be no speech of a Jew
to the Father: "Behold, in how many years do I serve Thee, and Thy precept
have I never transgressed." For when has the Jew not been a transgressor of
the law; hearing with the ear, and not hearing;[1] holding in hatred him
who reproveth in the gates,[2] and in scorn holy speech?[3] So, too, it
will be no speech of the Father to the Jew: "Thou art always with Me, and
all Mine are thine." For the Jews are pronounced "apostate 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 anger the Holy One of
Israel."[4] That all things, plainly, were conceded to the Jew, we shall
admit; but he has likewise had every more savoury morsel torn from his
throat,[5] 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.[6] Seek, therefore, the
Christians some other as their brother; for the Jew the parable does not
admit. Much more aptly would they have matched the Christian with the
elder, and the Jew with the younger son, "according to the analogy of
faith,"[7] if the order of each people as intimated from Rebecca's womb[8]
permitted the inversion: only that (in that case) the concluding paragraph
would oppose them; for it will he fitting for the Christian to rejoice, and
not to grieve, at the restoration of Israel, if it he true, (as it is),
that the whole of our hope is intimately united with the remaining
expectation of Israel.[9] Thus, even if some (features in the parable) 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 he 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 parable has bidden us (temper it). For we remember (to have
seen) actors withal, white accommodating allegorical gestures to their
ditties, giving expression to such as are far different from the immediate
plot, and scene, and character, and yet with the utmost congruity. But away
with extraordinary ingenuity, for it has nothing to do with our subject.
Thus heretics, too, apply the self-same parables where they list, and
exclude them (in other cases)--not where they ought--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 parables. Loosed as they
are from the constraints of the rule of truth, they have had leisure, of
course, to search into and put together those things of which the parables
seem (to be symbolical).

CHAP. IX.--CERTAIN GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PARABOLIC INTERPRETATION. THESE
APPLIED TO THE PARABLES NOW UNDER CONSIDERATION, ESPECIALLY TO THAT OF THE
PRODIGAL SON.

   We, however, who do not make the parables the sources whence we devise
our subject-matters, but the subject-matters the sources whence we
interpret the parables, do not labour hard, either, to twist all things
(into shape) in the exposition, while we take care to avoid all
contradictions. Why "an hundred sheep?" and why, to be sure, "ten
drachmas?" And what is that "besom?" Necessary it was that He who was
desiring to express the extreme pleasure which the salvation of one sinner
gives to God, should name some special quantity of a numerical whole from
which to describe that "one" had perished. Necessary it was that the style
of one engaged in searching for a "drachma" in a "house," should be aptly
fitted with the helpful accompaniment of a "besom" as well as of a "lamp."
For curious niceties of this kind not only render some things suspected,
but, by the subtlety of forced explanations, generally lead away from the
truth. There are, moreover, some points which are just simply introduced
with a view to the structure and disposition and texture of the parable, in
order that they may be worked up throughout to the end for which the
typical example is being provided. Now, of course the (parable of) the two
sons will point to the same end as (those of) the drachma and the ewe: for
it has the self-same cause (to call it forth) as those to which it coheres,
and the selfsame "muttering," of course, of the Pharisees at the
intercourse between the Lord and heathens. Or else, if any doubts that in
the land of Judea, subjugated as it had been long since by the hand of
Pompey and of Lucullus, the publicans were heathens, let him read
Deuteronomy: "There shall be no tribute-weigher of the sons of Israel."[10]
Nor would the name of publicans have been so execrable in the eyes of the
Lord, unless as being a "strange", 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 "sinners" to "publicans,"(2) it does not follow that he
shows them to have been Jews, albeit some may possibly have been so; but by
placing on a par the one genus of heathens--some sinners by office, that
is, publicans; some by nature, that is, not publicans--he has drawn a
distinction between them. Besides, the Lord would not have been censured
for partaking of food with Jews, but with heathens, from whose board the
Jewish discipline excludes (its disciples).(3)

   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 salvation. But the whole system of salvation, 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
Christian who, after wandering far from his Father, squanders, by living
heathenishly, the "substance" received from God his Father,--(the
substance), of course, of baptism--(the substance), of course, of the Holy
Spirit, and (in consequence) of eternal hope; if, stripped of his mental
"goods," he has even handed his service over to the prince of the world
(4)--who else but the devil?--and by him being appointed over the business
of "feeding swine"--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 blasphemers, and renegades,
and every class of apostates, will by this parable make satisfaction to the
Father; and in this way (it may) rather (be said that) the whole
"substance" of the sacrament is most truly wasted away. For who will fear
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 not to
perpetuity? Security in sin is likewise an appetite for it. Therefore the
apostate withal will recover his former "garment," the robe of the Holy
Spirit; and a renewal of the "ring," the sign and seal of baptism; and
Christ will again  be "slaughtered;"(5) and he will recline on that  couch
from which such as are unworthily clad are wont to be lifted by the
torturers, and cast away into darkness,(6)--much more such as have been
stripped. It is therefore a further step if it is not expedient, (any more
than reasonable), that the story of the prodigal son should apply to a
Christian. Wherefore, if the image of a "son" 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 "had perished;"(7) "a Physician." necessary to "the sick" "more than
to the whole."(8) This fact He was in the habit both of typifying in
parables and preaching in direct statements. Who among men "perishes," who
falls from health, but he who knows not the Lord? Who is "safe and sound,"
but he who knows the Lord? These two classes--"brothers" by birth--this
parable also will signify. See whether the heathen have in God the Father
the "substance" of origin, and wisdom, and natural power of Godward
recognition; by means of which power the apostle withal notes that "in the
wisdom of God, the world through wisdom knew not God,"(9)--(wisdom) which,
of course, it had received originally from God. This ("substance"),
accordingly, he "squandered;" having been cast by his moral habits far from
the Lord, amid the errors and allurements and appetites of the world, (10)
where, compelled by hunger after truth," he handed himself over to the
prince of this age. He set him over "swine," to feed that flock familiar to
demons,(12) 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, God; he returns to Him when he
has been satisfied; he receives again the pristine "garment,"--the
condition, to wit, which Adam by transgression had lost. The "ring" also he
is then Wont to receive for the first time, wherewith, after being
interrogated,(13) he publicly seals the agreement of faith, and thus
thenceforward feeds upon the "fatness" of the Lord's body,--the Eucharist,
to wit. This will be the prodigal son, who never in days bygone was
thrifty; who was from the first prodigal, because not from the first a
Christian. Him withal, returning from the world to the Father's embraces,
the Pharisees mourned over, in the persons of the "publicans and sinners."
And accordingly to this point alone the elder brother's envy is adapted:
not because the Jews were innocent, and obedient to God, but because they
envied the nation salvation; being plainly they who ought to have been
"ever with" the Father. And of course it is immediately over the first
calling of the Christian that the Jew groans, not over his second
restoration: for the former reflects its rap even upon the heathen; but the
latter, which takes place in the churches, is not known even to the Jews. I
think that I have advanced interpretations more consonant with the subject-
matter of the parables, 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 dracnma, and the voluptuousness of the son to the
shape of the Christian sinner, is that they may endow adultery 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, adultery and fornication, should be retained
inconcessible.

   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 parables to other ends (than they
were originally intended for), it would be rather to martyrdom 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 less wise in the Scriptures, than to be wise against them. We are
as much bound to keep the sense of the Lord as His precept. Transgression
in interpretation is not lighter than in conversation.

CHAP. X.--REPENTANCE MORE COMPETENT TO HEATHENS THAN TO CHRISTIANS.

   When, therefore, the yoke which forbade the discussion of these
parables with a view to the heathens 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 heathens, since their sins are not amenable to it, imputable
as they are to ignorance, 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 sin is committed with conscience and will, where
both the fault and the favour are intelligible; that he who mourns, he who
prostrates himself, is he who knows both what he has lost and what he will
recover if he makes to God the offering of his repentance--to God who, of
course, offers that repentance rather to sons than to strangers.

   Was that, then, the reason why Jonah thought not repentance necessary
to the heathen Ninevites, when he tergiversated in the duty of preaching?
or did he rather, foreseeing the mercy of God poured forth even upon
strangers, fear 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 knowledge of God, still sinning in ignorance, did the
prophet well-nigh perish?(1) except that he suffered a typical example of
the Lord's passion, which was to redeem heathens as well (as others) on
their repentance. It is enough for me that even John, when "strewing the
Lord's ways,"(2) was the herald of repentance no less to such as were on
military service and to publicans, than to the sons of Abraham.(3) The Lord
Himself presumed repentance on the part of the Sidonians and Tyrians if
they had seen the evidences of His "miracles."(4)

   Nay, but I will even contend that repentance is more competent to
natural sinners than to voluntary. For he will merit its fruit who has not
yet used more than he who has already withal abused it; and remedies will
be more effective on their first application than when outworn. No doubt
the Lord is "kind" to "the unthankful,"(5) rather than to the ignorant! and
"merciful" to the "reprobates" sooner than to such as have yet had no
probation! so that in-suits offered to His clemency do not rather incur His
anger than His caresses! 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 Gentiles while the Jews make sport of His
patience! But what the Psychics mean is this--that God, 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.

   Come, you rope-walker upon modesty, and  chastity, and every kind of
sexual sanctity, who, by the instrumentality of a discipline of this nature
remote from the path of truth, mount with uncertain footstep upon a most
slender thread, balancing flesh with spirit, moderating your animal
principle by faith, tempering your eye by fear; 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 mind, any wandering of the
eye, shall chance to shake you down from your equipoise, "God is good." To
His own (children), not to heathens, He opens His bosom: a second
repentance will await you; you will again, from being an adulterer, be a
Christian! These (pleas) you (will urge) to me, most benignant interpreter
of God. But I would yield my ground to you, if the scripture of" the
Shepherd,"(1) which is the only one which favours adulterers, had deserved
to find a place in the Divine canon; if it had not been habitually judged
by every council of Churches (even of your own) among apocryphal 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" Shepherd (1) will play the patron whom you depict upon your
(sacramental) chalice, (depict, I say, as) himself withal a prostitutor of
the Christian sacrament, (and hence) worthily both the idol of drunkenness,
and the brize of adultery by which the chalice will quickly be followed, (a
chalice) from which you sip nothing more readily than (the flavour of) the
"ewe" of (your) second repentance! I, however, imbibe the Scriptures of
that Shepherd who cannot be broken. Him John forthwith offers me, together
with the layer and duty of repentance; (and offers Him as) saying, "Bear
worthy fruits of repentance: and say not, We have Abraham (as our) father"-
-for fear, to wit, lest they should again take flattering unctions for
delinquency from the grace shown to the fathers--"for God is able from
these stones to raise sons to Abraham." Thus it follows that we too (must
judge) such as "sin no more" (as) "bearing worthy fruits of repentance."
For what more ripens as the fruit of repentance than the achievement of
emendation? But even if pardon is rather the" fruit of repentance," even
pardon cannot co-exist without the cessation from sin. So is the cessation
from sin the root of pardon, that pardon may be the fruit of repentance.

CHAP. XI.--FROM PARABLES TERTULLIAN COMES TO CONSIDER DEFINITE ACTS OF THE
LORD.

   From the side of its pertinence to the Gospel, the question of the
parables indeed has by this time been disposed of. If, however, the Lord,
by His deeds withal, issued any such proclamation in favour of sinners; as
when He permitted contact even with his own body to the "woman, a sinner,"-
-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; (2)--no benefit is hence
conferred upon our adversaries, even if it had been to such as were already
Christians 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!(3) 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
Christian discipline dates from the renewing of the Testament,(4) 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 faith; none
a Christian before the resumption of Christ to heaven; none holy before the
manifestation of the Holy Spirit from heaven, the Determiner of discipline
itself.

CHAP. XII.--OF THE VERDICT OF THE APOSTLES, ASSEMBLED IN COUNCIL, UPON THE
SUBJECT OF ADULTERY.

   Accordingly, these who have received "another Paraclete" in and through
the apostles,--(a Paraclete) whom, not recognising Him even in His special
prophets, they no longer possess in the apostles either;--come, now, let
them, even from the apostolic instrument, teach us the possibility that the
stains of a flesh which after baptism has been repolluted, can by
repentance be washed away. Do we not, in the apostles also, recognise the
form of the Old Law with regard to the demonstration of adultery, 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 Gospel 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
apostles, on the authority of the Holy Spirit, send out to those who were
already beginning to be gathered to their side out of the nations: "It has
seemed (good)," say they, "to the Holy Spirit 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 sacrifices, and from fornications, and from
blood:(5) by abstaining from which ye act rightly, the Holy Spirit carrying
you." Sufficient it is, that in this place withal there has been preserved
to adultery and fornication the post of their own honour between idolatry
and murder: for the interdict upon "blood" we shall understand to be (an
interdict) much more upon human blood. Well, then, in what light do the
apostles 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 heathens' 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
adultery, of course, and blood and idolatry: 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 Holy Spirit 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,(1) and the counsel embodied therein, will cease (only) with the
word.(2) 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 "idolatry" or to "blood." From which
final decision of theirs that the apostles should have departed, is (I
think) not lawful to believe; or else, if some find it possible to believe
so, they will be bound to prove it.

CHAP. XIII.--OF ST. PAUL, AND THE PERSON WHOM HE URGES THE CORINTHIANS
TO FORGIVE.

   We know plainly at this point, too, the suspicions which they raise.
For, in fact, they suspect the Apostle Paul 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 "surrendered to Satan,
for the destruction of the flesh,"(3)--impious heir as he was to his
father's wedlock; as if he subsequently erased his own words, writing: "But
if any hath wholly saddened, he hath not wholly saddened me, but in part,
lest I burden you all. Sufficient is such a chiding which is given by many;
so that, on the contrary, ye should prefer to forgive and console, lest,
perhaps, by more abundant sadness, such an one be devoured. For which
reason, I pray you, confirm toward him affection. For to this end withal
have I written, that I may learn a proof of you, that in all (things) ye
are obedient to me. But if ye shall have forgiven any, so (do) I; for I,
too, if I have forgiven ought, have forgiven in the person of Christ, lest
we be overreached by Satan, since we are not ignorant of his
injections."(4) What (reference) is understood here to the fornicator? what
to the contaminator of his father's bed?(5) what to the Christian who had
overstepped the shamelessness of heathens?--since, of course, he would have
absolved by a special pardon one whom he had condemned by a special anger.
He is more obscure in his pity than in his indignation. He is more open m
his austerity than in his lenity. And yet, (generally), anger 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 moderate indulgence; which (moderation in the indulgence)
was now, if ever, to be divined, when it is usual for all the greatest
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 prayers, the repentant adulterer, lead into the midst and prostrate
him, all in haircloth and ashes, a compound of disgrace and horror, before
the widows, 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,
grace your harangue with all the allurements of mercy in your power, and
under the parable of the "ewe" go in quest of your goats?(6) do you, for
fear lest your "ewe" 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 "would confirm toward him
affection," as if he were making satisfaction to him, not as if he were
granting an indulgence! And yet I hear (him speak of) "affection," not
"communion;" as (he writes) withal to the Thessalonians "But if any obey
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."(1) Accordingly, he could have said that to a fornicator, too,
"affection" only was conceded, not "communion "as well; to an incestuous
man, however, not even "affection;" whom he would, to be sure, have bidden
to be banished from their midst(2)--much more, of course, from their mind.
"But he was apprehensive lest they should be 'overreached by Satan' with
regard to the loss of that person whom himself had cast forth to Satan; or
else lest, 'by abundance of mourning, he should be devoured 'whom he had
sentenced to 'destruction of the flesh.'" Here they go so far as to
interpret "destruction of the flesh" the office of repentance; in that by
fasts, and squalor, and every species of neglect and studious ill-treatment
devoted to the extermination of the flesh, it seems to make satisfaction to
God; so that they argue that that fornicator--that incestuous person
rather--having been delivered by the apostle to Satan, not with a view to
"perdition," but with a view to "emendation," on the hypothesis that
subsequently he would, on account of the "destruction" (that is, the
general affliction) "of the flesh," attain pardon, therefore did actually
attain it. Plainly, the selfsame apostle delivered to Satan Hymenaeus and
Alexander, "that they might be emended into not blaspheming,"(3) as he
writes to his Timotheus. "But withal himself says that a stake was given
him, an angel of Satan," by which he was to be buffeted, lest he should
exalt himself" If they touch upon this (instance) withal, in order to lead
us to understand that such as were "delivered to Sam" by him (were so
delivered) with a view to emendation, not to perdition; what similarity is
there between blasphemy and incest, and a soul entirely free from these,--
nay, rather elated from no other source than the highest sanctity and all
innocence; which (elation of soul) was being restrained in the apostle by
"buffets," if you will, by means (as they say) of pain in the ear or head?
Incest, however, and blasphemy, deserved to have delivered the entire
persons of men to Satan himself for a possession, not to "an angel" 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 Satan, but to the apostle
himself an angel of Satan given. Lastly, when Paul is praying the Lord for
its removal, what does he hear? "Hold my grace sufficient; for virtue is
perfected in infirmity."(5) This they who are surrendered to Satan cannot
hear. Moreover, if the crime of Hymenaeus and Alexander--blasphemy, to wit-
-is irremissible in this and in the future. age,(6) of course the apostle
would not, in opposition to the determinate decision of the Lord, have
given to Satan, under a hope of pardon, men already sunken from the faith
into blasphemy; whence, too, he pronounced them "shipwrecked with regard to
faith,"(7) having no longer the solace of the ship, the Church. For to
those who, after believing, have struck upon (the rock of) blasphemy,
pardon is denied; on the other hand, heathens and heretics are daily
emerging out of blasphemy. But even if he did say, "I delivered them to
Satan, that they might receive the discipline of not blaspheming," he said
it of the rest, who, by their deliverance to Satan--that is, their
projection outside the Church--had to be trained in the knowledge that
there must be no blaspheming. So, therefore, the incestuous fornicator,
too, he delivered, not with a view to emendation, but with a view to
perdition, to Satan, to whom he had already, by sinning above an heathen,
gone over; that they might learn there must be no fornicating. Finally, he
says, "for the destruction of the flesh," not its "torture"--condemning the
actual substance through which he had fallen out (of the faith), which
substance had already perished immediately on the loss of baptism--" in
order that the spirit," he says, "may be saved in the day of the Lord." And
(here, again, is a difficulty): for let this point be inquired into,
whether the man's own spirit will be saved. In that case, a spirit polluted
with so great a wickedness will be saved; the object of the perdition of
the flesh being, that the spirit may be saved in penalty. In that case, the
interpretation which is contrary to ours will recognise a penalty without
the flesh, if we lose the resurrection of the flesh. It remains, therefore,
that his meaning was, that that spirit which is accounted to exist in the
Church must be presented "saved," 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: "Know ye not, that a little leaven
spoileth the savour of the whole lump?"(1) And yet incestuous fornication
was not a little, but a large, leaven.

CHAP. XIV.--THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

   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, "Sufficient to such a man be this rebuke which (is
administered) by many," is not suitable to the person of the fornicator.
For if he had sentenced him "to be surrendered to Satan for the destruction
of the flesh," of course he had condemned rather than rebuked him. Some
other, then, it was to whom he willed the "rebuke" to be sufficient; if,
that is, the fornicator had incurred not "rebuke" from his sentence, but
"condemnation." For I offer you withal, for your investigation, this very
question: Whether there were in the first Epistle others, too, who "wholly
saddened" the apostle by "acting disorderly,"(2) and "were wholly saddened"
by him, through incurring (his) "rebuke," 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? "To God I give thanks that I have baptized none
of you, except Crispus and Gaius, lest any say that I have baptized in mine
own name."(3) "For neither did I judge to know anything among you but Jesus
Christ, and Him crucified."(4) And, "(I think) God hath selected us the
apostles (as) hindmost, like men appointed to fight with wild beasts; since
we have been made a spectacle to this world, both to angels and to men:"
And, "We have been made the offscourings of this world, the refuse of all:"
And, "Am I not free? am I not an apostle? have I not seen Christ Jesus our
Lord?"(5) With what kind of superciliousness, on the contrary, was he
compelled to declare, "But to me it is of small moment that I be
interrogated by you, or by a human court-day; for neither am I conscious to
myself (of any guilt);" and, "My glory none shall make empty."(6) "Know ye
not that we are to judge angels?"(7) Again, of how open censure (does) the
free expression (find utterance), how manifest the edge of the spiritual
sword, (in words like these): "Ye are already enriched! ye are already
satiated! ye are already reigning!" (8) and, "If any thinks himself to
know, he knoweth not yet how it behoves him to know!"(9) Is he not even
then "smiting some one's face,"(10) in saying, "For who maketh thee to
differ? What, moreover, hast thou which thou hast not received? Why
gloriest thou as if thou have not received?" (11) Is he not withal "smiting
them upon the mouth,"(12) (in saying): "But some, in (their) conscience,
even until now eat (it) as if (it were) an idol-sacrifice. But, so sinning,
by shocking the weak consciences of the brethren thoroughly, they will sin
against Christ."(13) By this time, indeed, (he mentions individuals) by
name: "Or have we not a power of eating., and of drinking, and of leading
about women, just as the other apostles withal, and the brethren of the
Lord, and Cephas?" and, "If others attain to (a share) in power over you,
(may) not we rather?" In like manner he pricks them, too, with an
individualizing pen: "Wherefore, let him who thinketh himself to be
standing, see lest he fall;" and, "If any seemeth to be contentious, we
have not such a custom, nor (has) the Church of the Lord." With such a
final clause (as the following), wound up with a malediction, "If any
loveth not the Lord Jesus, be he anathema maranatha," he is, of course,
striking same particular individual through.

   But I will rather take my stand at that point where the apostle is more
fervent, where the fornicator himself has troubled others also. "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 ye? shall I come unto you in a rod, or
in a spirit of lenity?" For what was to succeed? "There is heard among you
generally fornication, and such fornication as (is) not (heard) even among
the Gentiles, that one should have his own father's wife. And are ye
inflated, and have ye not rather mourned, that he who hath committed such a
deed may be taken away from the midst of you?" For whom were they to
"mourn?" Of course, for one dead. To whom were they to mourn? Of course, to
the Lord, in order that in some way or other he may be "taken away from the
midst of them;" not, of course in order that he may be put outside the
Church. 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 leprous with irremediable uncleanness--he might more fully
(than by simple excommunication) incur the penalty of being "taken away"
from the Church. And accordingly, in so far as it was meantime possible for
him to be "taken away," he "adjudged such an one to be surrendered to Satan
for the destruction of the flesh." For it followed that flesh which was
being cast forth to the devil should be accursed, in order that it might be
discarded from the sacrament of blessing, never to return into the camp of
the Church.

   And thus we see in this place the apostle's severity divided, against
one who was "inflated," and one who was "incestuous:" (we see the apostle)
armed against the one with "a rod," against the other with a sentence,--a
"rod," 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 forthwith 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 to whom, because neither
person nor cause is advertised. I will compare the cases with the senses.
If the "incestuous" man is set before us, on the same platform will be the
"inflated" man too. Surely the analogy, of the case is sufficiently
maintained, when the "inflated" is rebuked, but the "incestuous" is
condemned. To the "inflated" pardon is granted, but after rebuke; to the
"incestuous" no pardon seems to have been granted, as under condemnation.
If it was to him for whom it was feared that he might be "devoured by
mourning" that pardon was being granted, the "rebuked" one was still in
danger of being devoured, losing heart on account of the commination, and
mourning on account of the rebuke. The "condemned" 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 "mourn," but to
suffer that which, before suffering it, he might have mourned. If the
reason why pardon was being granted was "lest we should be defrauded by
Satan," 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 despatched, but in the case of a thing still safe. But the
condemned one --condemned, too, to the possession of Satan--had already
perished from the Church at the moment when he had committed such a deed,
not to say withal at the moment of being forsworn by the Church itself. How
should (the Church) fear 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) that judge who is not wont "to
rebuild those things which he has destroyed, lest he be held a
transgressor."(1)

   Come, now, if he had not "wholly saddened" so many persons in the first
Epistle; if he had "rebuked" none, had "terrified"(2) none; if he had
"smitten" the incestuous man alone; if, for his cause, he had sent none
into panic, had struck (no) "inflated" 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, Paul, the "apostle of
Christ,"(3) the "teacher of the nations in faith and verity,"(4) the
"vessel of election,"(5) 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 lust,--(lust)
which he had refused to compare even with (the lusts of) the nations, for
fear it should be set down to the account of custom; (lust) on which he
would sit in judgment though absent, for fear the culprit should "gain the
time;"(1) (lust) which he had condemned after calling to his aid even "the
Lord's power," for fear the sentence should seem human. Therefore he has
trifled both with his own "spirit,"(2) and with "the angel of the
Church,"(3) and with "the power of the Lord," if he rescinded what by their
counsel he had formally pronounced.

CHAP. XV.--THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

   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 ecclesiastical peace to an incestuous fornicator, he should
forthwith have proceeded to accumulate exhortations about turning away from
impurities, about pruning away of blemishes, about exhortations to deeds of
sanctity, as if he had decreed nothing of a contrary nature just before?
Compare, in short, (and see) whether it be his province to say, "Wherefore,
having this ministration, in accordance with (the fact) that we have
obtained mercy, we faint not; but renounce the secret things of
disgrace,"(4) who has just released from condemnation one manifestly
convicted of, not "disgrace" merely, but crime too: whether it be Ms
province, again, to excuse a conspicuous immodesty, who, among the counts
of his own labours, after" straits and pressures," after" fasts and
vigils," has named "chastity" also:(5) whether it be, once more, his
province to receive back into communion whatsoever reprobates, who writes,
"For what society (is there) between righteousness and iniquity? what
communion, moreover, between light and darkness? what consonance between
Christ and Belial? or what part for a believer with an unbeliever? or what
agreement between the temple of God and idols?" Will he not deserve to hear
constantly(the reply); "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 Church, righteousness is made to have fellowship with
iniquity, darkness has communion with light, Belial is consonant with
Christ, and believer shares the sacraments with unbeliever. And idols may
see to themselves: the very vitiator of the temple of God is converted into
a temple of God: for here, too, he sap, 'For ye are a temple of the living
God. For He saith, That I will dwell in you, and will walk in (you), and
will be their God, and they shall be to Me a people. Wherefore depart from
the midst of them, be separate, and touch not the unclean.'(6) 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 spirit, perfecting
chastity in God's fear.'"(7) I pray you, had he who fixes such
(exhortations) in our minds been recalling some notorious fornicator into
the Church? 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, "Lest, when I shall have come,
God humble me, and I bewail many of those who have formerly sinned, and
have not repented of the impurity which they have committed, the
fornication, and the vileness,"(8) he did not, of course, determine that
they were to be received hack (by him into the Church) if they should have
entered (the path of) repentance, whom he was to find in the Church, 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 ignorant 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 docrines; so as to
presume that he, a teacher of every sanctity, even by his own example, an
execrator and expiator of every impurity, and universally consistent with
himself in these points, restored ecclesiastical privileges to an
incestuous person sooner than to some more mild offender.

CHAP. XVI.--GENERAL CONSISTENCY OF THE APOSTLE.

   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 know (him to be) in all his letters. (He
it is) who even in the first (Epistle) was the first of all (the apostles)
to dedicate the temple of God: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,
and that in you the Lord dwells?"(1)--who likewise, for the consecrating
and purifying (of) that temple, wrote the law pertaining to the temple-
keepers: "If any shall have marred the temple of God, him shall God mar;
for the temple of God is holy, which (temple) are ye."(2) Come, now; who in
the world has (ever) redintegrated one who has been "marred" by God (that
is, delivered to Satan with a view to destruction of the flesh), after
subjoining for that reason, "Let none seduce himself;"(3) that is, let none
presume that one "marred" by God can possibly be redintegrated anew? Just
as, again, among all other crimes--nay, even before all others--when
affirming that "adulterers, and fornicators, and effeminates, and co-
habitors with males, will not attain the kingdom of God," he premised, "Do
not err"(4)--to wit, if you think they will attain it. But to them from
whom "the kingdom" is taken away, of course the life which exists in the
kingdom is not permitted either. Moreover, by superadding, "But such indeed
ye have been; but ye have received ablution, but ye have been sanctified,
in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God;"(5) in
as far as he puts on the paid side of the account such sins before baptism,
in so far after baptism he determines them irremissible, if it is true, (as
it is), that they are not allowed to "receive ablution" anew. Recognise,
too, in what follows, Paul(in the character of) an immoveable column of
discipline and its rules: "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats:
God maketh a full end both of the one and of the others; but the body (is)
not for fornication, but for God:"(6) for "Let Us make man," said God,
"(conformable) to Our image and likeness." "And God made man; (conformable)
to the image and likeness of God made He him."(7) "The Lord for the body:"
yes; for "the Word was made flesh."(8) "Moreover, God both raised up the
Lord, and will raise up us through His own power;"(9) on account, to wit,
of the union of our body with Him. And accordingly, "Know ye not your
bodies(to be) members of Christ?" because Christ, too, is God's temple.
"Overturn this temple, and I will in three days' space resuscitate it."(10)
"Taking away the members of Christ, shall I make (them) members of an
harlot? Know ye not, 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."(11) 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 "one body," to which by communion
I shall be agglutinated. "Every sin which a human being may have committed
is extraneous to the body; but whoever fornicateth, sinneth against his own
body."(12) And, for fear 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: "And ye are not your
own;" immediately opposing (thereto), "for bought ye are with a price"--the
blood, to wit, of the Lord:(13) "glorify and extol the Lord in your
body."(14) 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 knowledge of the apostle, in order to understand
with what an axe of censorship he lops, and eradicates, and extirpates,
every forest of lusts, for fear of permitting aught to regain strength and
sprout again; behold him desiring souls to keep a fast from the legitimate
fruit of nature--the apple, I mean, of marriage: "But with regard to what
ye wrote, good it is for a man to have no contact with a woman; but, on
account of fornication, let each one have his own wife: let husband to
wife, and wife to husband, render what is due."(15) Who but must know that
it was against his will that he relaxed the bond of this "good," 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 forthwith 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 "by way of indulgence, not of command."(16) For
he "wills" all to be on a level with himself. But when things lawful are
(only) granted by way of indulgence, who hope for things unlawful? "To the
unmarried" also, "and widows," he says, "It is good, by his example, to
persevere" (in their present state); "but if they were too weak, to marry;
because it is preferable to marry than to bum." (1) With what fires, I pray
you, is it preferable to "burn"--(the fires) of concupiscence, or (the
fires) of penalty? Nay, but if fornication is pardonable, it will not be an
object of concupiscence. But it is more (the manner) of an apostle to take
forethought for the fires of penalty. Wherefore, if it is penalty which
"burns," it follows that fornication, which penalty awaits, is not
pardonable. Meantime withal, while prohibiting divorce, he uses the Lord's
precept against adultery as an instrument for providing, in place of
divorce, either perseverance in widowhood, or else a reconciliation of
peace: inasmuch as "whoever shall have dismissed a wife (for any cause)
except the cause of adultery, maketh her commit adultery; and he who
marrieth one dismissed by a husband committeth adultery."(2) What powerful
remedies does the Holy Spirit furnish, to prevent, to wit, the commission
anew of that which He wills not should anew be pardoned!

   Now, if in all cases he says it is best for a man thus to be; "Thou art
joined to a wife seek not loosing" (that you may give no occasion to
adultery); "thou art loosed from a wife, seek not a wife," that you may
reserve an opportunity for yourself: "but withal, if thou shalt have
married a wife, and if a virgin shall have married, she sinneth not;
pressure, however, of the flesh such shall have,"--even here he is granting
a permission by way of "sparing them."(3) On the other hand, he lays it
down that "the time is wound up," in order that even "they who have wives
may be as if they had them not." "For the fashion of this world is passing
away,"--(this world) no longer, to wit, requiting (the command), "Grow and
multiply." Thus he wills us to pass our life "without anxiety," because
"the unmarried care about the Lord, how they may please God; the married,
however, muse about the world,(4) how they may please their spouse."(5)
Thus he pronounces that the "preserver of a virgin" doeth" better" than her
"giver in marriage."(6) Thus, too, he discriminatingly judges her to be
more blessed, who, after losing her husband subsequently to her entrance
into the faith, lovingly embraces the opportunity of widowhood.(7) Thus he
commends as Divine all these counsels of continence: "I think,"(8) he says,
"I too have the Spirit of God."(9)

   Who is this your most audacious asserter of all immodesty, plainly a
"most faithful" advocate of the adulterous, and fornicators, and
incestuous, in whose honour he has undertaken this cause against the Holy
Spirit, so that he recites a false testimony from (the writings of) His
apostle? No such indulgence granted Paul, who endeavours to obliterate
"necessity of the flesh" wholly from (the list of) even honourable pretexts
(for marriage unions). He does grant "indulgence," I allow;--not to
adulteries, but to nuptials. He does "spare," I allow;--marriages, not
harlotries. He tries to avoid giving pardon even to nature, for fear he may
flatter guilt. He is studious to put restraints upon the union which is
heir to blessing, for fear 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 ignorant heretics; 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:

CHAP. XVII.--CONSISTENCY OF THE APOSTLE IN HIS OTHER EPISTLES.

   Challenge me to front the apostolic line of battle; look at his
Epistles: they all keep guard in defence of modesty, of chastity, of
sanctity; they all aim their missiles against the interests of luxury, and
lasciviousness, and lust. What, in short, does he write to the
Thessalonians withal? "For our consolation(10) (originated) not of
seduction, nor of impurity:" and, "This is the will of God, your
sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; that each one know how to
possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the lust of
concupiscence, as (do) the nations which are ignorant of God."(11) What do
the Galatians read? "Manifest are the works of the flesh." What are these?
Among the first he has set "fornication, impurity, lasciviousness:"
"(concerning) which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that whoever do
such acts are not to attain by inheritance the kingdom of God."(12) The
Romans, moreover,--what learning is more impressed upon them than that
there must be no dereliction of the Lord after believing? "What, then, say
we? Do we persevere in sin, in order that grace may superabound? Far be it.
We, who are dead to sin, how shall we live in it still? Are ye ignorant
that we who have been baptized in Christ have been baptized into His death?
Buried with Him, then, we have been, through the baptism into the death, in
order that, as Christ hath 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; knowing this,
that our old man hath been crucified together with Him. But if we died with
Christ, we believe that we shall live, too, with Him; knowing that Christ,
having been raised from the dead, no more dieth, (that) death no more hath
domination over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once for all; but
in that He liveth, to God He liveth. Thus, too, repute ye yourselves dead
indeed to sin, but living to God through Christ Jesus."(1) Therefore,
Christ being once for all dead, none who, subsequently to Christ, has died,
can live again to sin, and especially to so heinous a sin. Else, if
fornication and adultery may by possibility be anew admissible, Christ
withal will be able anew to die. Moreover, the apostle is urgent in
prohibiting" sin from reigning in our mortal body,"(2) whose "infirmity of
the flesh" he knew. "For as ye have tendered your members to servile
impurity and iniquity, so too now tender them servants to righteousness
unto holiness." For even if he has affirmed that "good dwelleth not in his
flesh,"(3) yet (he means) according to "the law of the letter,"(4) in which
he "was:" but according to "the law of the Spirit,"(5) to which he annexes
us, he frees us from the "infirmity of the flesh." "For the law," he says,
"of the Spirit of life hath manumitted thee from the law of sin and of
death."(6) For albeit he may appear to be partly disputing from the
standpoint of Judaism, 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, "God hath sent, through flesh, His own
Son, in similitude of flesh of sin; and, became of sin, hath condemned sin
in the flesh; in order that the righteousness of the law," he says, "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." (7) Moreover, he has affirmed the "sense
of the flesh" to be "death;" (8) hence too, "enmity," and enmity toward
God;(9) and that "they who are in the flesh," that is, in the sense of the
flesh, "cannot please God:"(10) and, "If ye live according to flesh," he
says, "it will come to pass that ye die."(11)But what do we understand "the
sense of the flesh" and "the life of the flesh"(to mean), except whatever
"it shames (one) to pronounce?"(12) for the other (works) of the flesh even
an apostle would have named.(13) Similarly, too, (when writing) to the
Ephesians, while recalling past (deeds), he warns (them) concerning the
future: "In which we too had our conversation, doing the concupiscences and
pleasures of the flesh."(14) Branding, in fine, such as had denied
themselves--Christians, to wit--on the score of having "delivered
themselves up to the working of every impunity,"(15) "But ye," he says,
"not so have learnt Christ." And again he says thus: "Let him who was wont
to steal, steal no more."(16) But, similarly, let him who was wont to
commit adultery hitherto, not commit adultery; and he who was wont to
fornicate hitherto, not fornicate: for he would have added these
(admonitions) too, had he been in the habit 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, "Let no base speech proceed out of your
mouth."(17) Again: "But let fornication and every impurity not be even
named among you, as becometh saints,"(18)--so far is it from being
excused,--"knowing this, that every fornicator or impure (person) hath not
God's kingdom. Let none seduce you with empty words: on this account cometh
the wrath of God upon the sons of unbelief."(19) Who "seduces with empty
words" but he who states in a public harangue that adultery 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: "And be not inebriated with wine, in which is
voluptuousness."(20) He demonstrates, too, to the Colossians what "members"
they are to  "mortify" upon earth: "fornication, impurity, lust, evil
concupiscence," and "base talk."(21) 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, doubt 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 circumcised
Timotheus alone, and yet did away with circumcision.(1)

CHAP. XVIII.--ANSWER TO A PSYCHICAL OBJECTION.

   "But these (passages)," says (our opponent), "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 forthwith
quite denied when sins are condemned, since the time of the pardon is
concurrent with the condemnation which it excludes."

   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 ecclesiastical communion to cases of this kind.

   For even in the Proverbs, which we call Paroemiae, Solomon specially
(treats) of the adulterer (as being) nowhere admissible to expiation. "But
the adulterer," he says, "through indigence of senses acquireth perdition
to his own soul; sustaineth 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."(2) If you think this said
about a heathen, at all events about believers you have already heard (it
said) through Isaiah:" Go out from the midst of them, and be separate, and
touch not the impure."(3) You have at the very outset of the Psalms,
"Blessed the man who hath not gone astray in the counsel of the impious,
nor stood in the way of sinners, and sat in the state-chair of
pestilence;"(4) whose voice,(5) withal,(is  heard) subsequently: "I have
not sat with the conclave of vanity; and with them who act iniquitously
will I not enter"--this (has to do with "the church" of such as act ill--
"and with the impious will I not sit;"(6) and, "I will wash with the
innocent mine hands, and Thine altar will I surround, Lord"(7)--as being" a
host in himself"--inasmuch as indeed "With an holy (man), holy Thou wilt
be; and with an innocent man, innocent Thou wilt be; and with an elect,
elect Thou wilt be; and with a perverse, perverse Thou wilt be."(8) And
elsewhere: "But to the sinner saith the Lord, Why expoundest thou my
righteous acts, and takest up my testament through thy mouth? If thou
sawest a thief, thou rannest with him; and with adulterers thy portion thou
madest."(9) Deriving his instructions, therefore, from hence, the apostle
too says: "I wrote to you in the Epistle, not to be mingled up with
fornicators: not, of course, with the fornicators of this world"--and so
forth--" else it behoved 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" (for what so intimately joined?), "or a defrauder" (for what so
near akin?), and so on, "with such to take no food even,"(10) not to say
the Eucharist: because, to wit, withal "a little leaven spoileth the
flavour of the whole lump."(11) Again to Timotheus: "Lay hands on no one
hastily, nor communicate with others' sins."(12) Again to the Ephesians:
"Be not, then, partners with them: for ye were at one time darkness."(13)
And yet more earnestly: "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."(14) What more
disgraceful than immodesties? If, moreover, even from a "brother" who
"walketh idly"(15) he warns the Thessalonians to withdraw themselves, how
much more withal from a fornicator! For these are the deliberate judgments
of Christ, "loving the Church," who "hath delivered Him self up for her,
that He may sanctify her (purifying her utterly by the layer of water) in
the word, that He may present the Church to Him self glorious, not having
stain or wrinkle"--of course after the laver--"but (that) she may be holy
and without reproach;"(16) thereafter, to wit, being "without wrinkle" as a
virgin, "without stain" (of fornication) as a spouse, "without disgrace"
(of vileness), as having been "utterly purified."

   What if, even here, you should conceive to reply that communion is
indeed denied to sinners, very especially such as had been "polluted by the
flesh,"(17) 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?(18)--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: "Communicate not with the works of darkness, unless
they shall have repented;" and, "With such take not food even, unless after
they shall have wiped, with rolling at their feet, the shoes of the
brethren;" and, "Him who shall have marred the temple of God, shall God
mar, unless he shall have shaken off from his head in the church the ashes
of all hearths." 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, seventy. However,
since in all Epistles he both prohibits such a character, (so sinning)
after believing, from being admitted (to the society of believers); and, if
admitted, detrudes him from communion, without hope of any condition or
time; he sides more with our opinion, pointing out that the repentance
which the Lord prefers is that which before believing, before baptism, is
esteemed better than the death of the sinner,--(the sinner, I say,) once
for all to be washed through the grace of Christ, who once for all has
suffered death for our sins. 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,(1) of whom himself had been the "first," what
does he add? "And I obtained mercy, because I did (so) ignorantly in
unbelief."(2) Thus that clemency of God, preferring the repentance of a
sinner to his death, looks at such as are ignorant still, and still
unbelieving, for the sake of whose liberation Christ came; not (at such) as
already know God, and have learnt the sacrament of the faith. But if the
clemency of God is applicable to such as are ignorant still, and
unbelieving, of course it follows that repentance invites clemency to
itself; without prejudice to that species of repentance after believing,
which either, for lighter sins, will be able to obtain pardon from the
bishop, or else, for greater and irremissible ones, from God only.(3)

CHAP. XIX.--OBJECTIONS FROM THE REVELATION AND THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST.
JOHN REFUTED.

   But how far (are we to treat) of Paul; 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 angel of the Thyatirenes, the Spirit sends a message that He
"hath against him that he kept (in communion) the woman Jezebel, who
calleth herself a prophet, and teacheth,(4) and seduceth my servants unto
fornicating and eating of idolsacrifice. 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."(5) I am content with the fact that, between
apostles, there is a common agreement in rules of faith and of discipline.
For, "Whether (it be) I," says (Paul), "or they, thus we preach."(6)
Accordingly, it is material to the interest of the whole sacrament to
believe nothing conceded by John, which has been taffy refused by Paul.
This harmony of the Holy Spirit whoever observes, shall by Him be conducted
into His meanings. For (the angel of the Thyatirene Church) was secretly
introducing into the Church, and urging justly to repentance, an heretical
woman, who had taken upon herself to teach what she had learnt from the
Nicolaitans. For who has a doubt that an heretic, 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 Church?
Whence even among us, as being on a par with an heathen, nay even more than
heathen, an heretic likewise, (such an one) is purged through the baptism
of truth from each character,(7) and admitted (to the Church). Or else, if
you are certain that that woman had, after a living faith, subsequently
expired, and turned heretic, in order that you may claim pardon as the
result of repentance, not as it were for an heretical, but as it were for a
believing, sinner: let her, I grant, repent; but with the view of ceasing
from adultery, 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 God.(8)

   In short, this Apocalypse, in its later passages, has assigned "the
infamous and fornicators," as well as "the cowardly, and unbelieving, and
murderers, and sorcerers, and idolaters," who have been guilty of any such
crime while professing the faith, to "the lake of fire,"(9) without any
conditional condemnation. For it will not appear to savour of (a bearing
upon) heathens, since it has (just) pronounced with regard to believers,
"They who shall have conquered shall have this inheritance; and I will be
to them a God, and they to me for sons;" and so has subjoined: "But to the
cowardly, and unbelieving, and infamous, 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." Thus, too, again "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 holy city. Dogs,
sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, out!"(1)--of course, such as do not act
according to the precepts; for to be sent out is the portion of those who
have been within. Moreover "What have I to do to judge them who are
without?"(2) had preceded (the sentences now in question).

   From the Epistle also of John they forthwith cull (a proof). It is
said: "The blood of His Son purifieth us utterly from every sin."(3) Always
then, and in every form, we will sin, if always and from every sin He
utterly purifies us; or else, if not always, not again after believing; and
if not from sin, not again from fornication. But what is the point whence
(John) has started? He had predicated "God" to be "Light," and that
"darkness is not in Him," and that "we lie if we say that we have communion
with Him, and walk in darkness."(4) "If, however," he sap, "we walk in the
light, we shall have communion with Him, and the blood of Jesus Christ our
Lord purifieth us utterly from every sin."(5) Walking, then, in the light,
do we sin? and, sinning in the light, shall we be utterly purified? By no
means. For he who sins is not in the light, but in darkness. Whence, too,
he points out the mode in which we shall be utterly purified from sin--(by)
"walking in the light," in which sin cannot be committed. Accordingly, the
sense in which he says we "are utterly purified" is, not in so far as we
sin, but in so far as we do not sin. For, "walking in the light," but not
having communion with darkness, we shall act as they that are "utterly
purified;" sin not being quite laid down, but not being wittingly
committed. For this is the virtue of the Lord's blood, that such as it has
already purified from sin, and thenceforward has set "in the light," it
renders thenceforward pure, if they shall continue to persevere walking in
the light. "But he subjoins," you say, "'If we say that we have not sin, we
are seducing ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins,
faithful and just is He to remit them to us, and utterly purify us from
every unrighteousness.'"(6) Does he say "from impurity?" (No): or else, if
that is so, then (He "utterly purifies" us) from "idolatry" too. But there
is a difference in the sense. For see yet again: "If we say," he says,
"that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in
us."(7) All the more fully: "Little children, these things have I written
to you, lest ye sin; and if ye shall have sinned, an Advocate we have with
God the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and, He is the propitiation for
our sins."(8) "According to these words," you say, "it will be admitted
both that we sin, and that we have pardon." What, then, will become (of
your theory), when, proceeding (with the Epistle), I find something
different? For he affirms that we do not sin at all; and to this end he
treats at large, that he may make no such concession; setting forth that
sins 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 chastity. "Every one," he says, "who hath this hope,
maketh himself chaste, because He too is chaste. Every one who doeth sin,
doeth withal iniquity;(9) and sin is iniquity.(10) And ye know that He hath
been manifested to take away sins"--henceforth, of course, to be no more
incurred, if it is true, (as it is,) that he subjoins, "Every one who
abideth in Him sinneth not; every one who sinneth neither hath seen nor
knoweth Him. Little children, let none seduce you. Every one who doeth
righteousness is righteous, as He withal is righteous. He who doeth sin is
of the devil, inasmuch as the devil sinneth from the beginning. For unto
this end was manifested the Son of God, to undo the works of the devil:"
for He has "undone" them withal, by setting man free through baptism, the
"handwriting of death" having been "made a gift of" to him:" and
accordingly, "he who is being born of God doeth not sin, because the seed
of God abideth in him; and he cannot sin, because he hath been born of God.
Herein are manifest the sons of God and the sons of the devil."(12)
Wherein? except it be (thus): the former by not sinning, from the time that
they were born from God; the latter by sinning, because they are from the
devil, just as if they never were born from God? But if he says, "He who is
not righteous is not of God,"(13) how shall he who is not modest again
become (a son) of God, who has already ceased to be so?

   "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 sin, but now prescribing that we do not sin at all: and in the one
case flattering us somewhat with hope of pardon, but in the other assetting
with all stringency, that whoever may have sinned are no sons of God." But
away with (the thought): for not even we ourselves forget the distinction
between sins, 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 sins of daily committal, to which we all are liable: for who will be
free from the accident of either being angry unjustly, and retaining his
anger beyond sunset;(1) or else even using manual violence or else
carelessly speaking evil; or else rashly swearing; or else forfeiting his
plighted word or else lying, from bashfulness or "necessity?" In
businesses, in official duties, in trade, in food, in sight, in hearing, by
how great temptations are we plied! So that, if there were no pardon for
such sins as these, salvation would be unattainable to any. Of these, then,
there will be pardon, through the successful Suppliant of the Father,
Christ. But there are, too, the contraries of these; as the graver and
destructive ones, such as are incapable of pardon--murder, idolatry, fraud,
apostasy, blasphemy; (and), of come, too, adultery and fornication; and if
there be any other "violation of the temple of God." For these Christ will
no more be the successful Header: these will not at all be incurred by one
who has been born of God, who will cease to be the son of God if he do
incur them.

   Thus John's rule of diversity will be established; arranging as he does
a distinction of sins, while he now admits and now denies that the sons of
God sin. 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: "If any
knoweth his brother to be sinning a sin not unto death, he shall make
request, and the Lord shall give life to him who sinneth not unto death.
For there is a sin unto death: not concerning that do I say that one should
make request."(2) He, too, (as I have been), was mindful that Jeremiah had
been prohibited by God to deprecate (Him) on behalf of a people which was
committing mortal sins. "Every unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin
unto death.(3) But we know that every one who hath been born of God sinneth
not"(4)--to wit, the sin which is unto death. Thus there is no course left
for you, but either to deny that adultery and fornication are mortal sins;
or else to confess them irremissible, for which it is not permitted even to
make successful intercession.

CHAP. XX.--FROM APOSTOLIC TEACHING TERTULLIAN TURNS TO THAT OF COMPANIONS
OF THE APOSTLES, AND OF THE LAW.

   The discipline, therefore, of the apostles properly (so called),
indeed, instructs and determinately directs, as a principal point, the
overseer of all sanctity as regards the temple of God to the universal
eradication of every sacrilegious outrage upon modesty, without any mention
of restoration. I wish, however, redundantly to superadd the testimony
likewise of one particular comrade of the apostles,--(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 God, as being one whom
Paul has stationed next to himself in the uninterrupted observance of
abstinence: "Or else, I alone and Barnabas, have not we the power of
working?"(5) And, of course, the Episfie of Barnabas is more generally
received among the Churches than that apocryphal "Shepherd" of adulterers.
Warning, accordingly, the disciples 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: "For impossible it is that
they who have once been illuminated, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and
have participated in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the word of God 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 Son of God, and dishonouring Him."(6) "For the earth which
hath drunk the rain often descending upon it, and hath borne grass apt for
them on whose account it is tilled withal, attaineth God's blessing; but if
it bring forth thorns, it is reprobate, and nighest to cursing, whose end
is (doomed) unto utter burning."(7) He who learnt this from aposties, and
taught it with apostles, never knew of any "second repentance" promised by
apostles to the adulterer and fornicator.

   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 leper: "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 priest,
when he shall have seen, shall utterly cleanse him: since he hath wholly
turned into white he is clean. But on the day that there shall have been
seen in such an one quick colour, he is defiled.", (The Law) would have the
man who is wholly turned from the pristine habit of the flesh to the
whiteness of faith--which (faith) is esteemed a defect and blemish in (the
eyes of) the world(2)--and is wholly made new, to be understood to be
"clean;" as being no longer "speckled," 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 sin in
his flesh must again be judged unclean, and must no more be expiated by the
priest. Thus adultery, sprouting again from the pristine stock, and wholly
blemishing the unity of the new colour 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 priest,
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 priest, 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 leprosy 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.(3) 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 soul, may be clean; and when the Word of God has entered it, and
has found "stains of red and green," forthwith must the deadly and
sanguinary passions "be extracted" and "cast away" out of doors--for the
Apocalypse wtthal has set "death" upon a "green horse," but a "warrior"
upon a "red"(4)--and in their stead must be under-strewn stones polished
and apt for conjunction, and firm,--such as are made (by God) into (sons)
of Abraham,(5)--that thus the man may be fit for God. But if, after the
recovery and reformation, the priest 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.(6) This will be the man -
-flesh and soul--who, subsequently to reformation, after baptism and the
entrance of the priests, again resumes the scabs and stains of the flesh,
and "is case away outside the city into an unclean place,"--" surrendered,"
to wit, "to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,"--and is no more
rebuilt in the Church after his ruin. So, too, with regard to lying with a
female slave, who had been betrothed to an husband, but not yet redeemed,
not yet set free: "provision," 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.(7) For flesh not yet manumitted to Christ, for whom it was
being kept,(8) used to be contaminated with impunity: so now, after
manumission, it no more receives pardon.

CHAP. XXI.--OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DISCIPLINE AND POWER, AND OF THE
POWER OF THE KEYS.

   If the apostles 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 doctrine of apostles and their power.
Discipline governs a man, power sets a seal upon him; apart from the fact
that power is the Spirit, but the Spirit is God. What, moreover, used (the
Spirit) to teach? That there must be no communicating with the works of
darkness.(9) Observe what He bids. Who, moreover, was able to forgive sins?
This is His alone prerogative: for "who remitteth sins but God alone?"(10)
and, of course, (who but He can remit) mortal sins, such as have been
committed against Himself,(11) and against His temple? For, as far as you
are concerned, such as are chargeable with offence against you personally,
you are commanded, in the person of Peter, to forgive even seventy times
sevenfold.(12) And so, if it were agreed that even the blessed apostles had
granted any such indulgence (to any crime) the pardon of which (comes) from
God, 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,(13) which God alone (can do), and restored the debilitated to their
integrity,(14) which none but Christ (can do); nay, they infflicted 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(1) and Elymas(2)--Ananias
with death, Elymas with blindness--in order that by this very fact it might
be proved that Christ had had the power of doing even such (miracles). So,
too, had the prophets (of old) granted to the repentant the pardon of
murder, and therewith of adultery, inasmuch as they gave, at the same time,
manifest proofs of seventy.(3) Exhibit therefore even now to me,(4)
apostolic sir, prophetic evidences, that I may recognise your divine
virtue, and vindicate to yourself the power of remitting such sins! If,
however, you have had the functions of discipline alone allotted you, and
(the duty) of presiding not imperially, but ministerially;(5) who or how
great are you, that you should grant indulgence, who, by exhibiting neither
the prophetic nor the apostolic character, lack that virtue whose property
it is to indulge?

   "But," you say, "the Church has the power of forgiving sins." This I
acknowledge and adjudge more (than you; I) who have the Paraclete Himself
in the persons of the new prophets, saying, "The Church has the power to
forgive sins; but I will not do it, lest they commit others withal." "What
if a pseudo-prophetic spirit has made that declaration?" 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 sin.
Or if, again, (the pseudo-prophetic spirit) has been eager to affect this
(sentiment) in accordance with "the Spirit of truth,"(6) it follows that
"the Spirit of truth" has indeed the power of indulgently granting pardon
to fornicators, but wills not to do it if it involve evil to the majority.

   I now inquire into your opinion, (to see) from what source you usurp
this right to "the Church."

   If, because the Lord has said to Peter, "Upon this rock will I build My
Church,"(7) "to thee have I given the keys of the heavenly kingdom;" (8)
or, "Whatsoever thou shale have bound or loosed in earth, shall be bound or
loosed in the heavens,"(9) 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? "On thee," He says, "will I build My Church; "and,"
I will give to thee the keys," not to the Church; and, "Whatsoever thou
shall have based or bound," not what they shall have loosed or bound. For
so withal the result teaches. In (Peter) himself the Church was reared;
that is, through (Peter) himself; (Peter) himself essayed the key; you see
what (key): "Men of Israel, let what I say sink into your ears: Jesus the
Nazarene, a man destined by God for you," and so forth.(10) (Peter)
himself, therefore, was the first to unbar, in Christ's baptism, the
entrance to the heavenly kingdom, in which (kingdom) are "loosed" the sins
that were beforetime "bound;" and those which have not been "loosed" are
"bound," in accordance with true salvation; and Ananias he "bound" with the
bond of death, and the weak in his feet he "absolved" 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 Spirit, and,
after making preface touching the calling of the nations, to say, "And now
why are ye 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 grace of Jesus we believe that we shall be saved m the
same way as they."(11) This sentence both "loosed" those parts of the law
which were abandoned, and "bound" those which were reserved. Hence the
power of loosing and of binding committed to Peter had nothing to do with
the capital sins of believers; and if the Lord had given him a precept that
he must grant pardon to a brother sinning against him even "seventy times
sevenfold," of course He would have commanded him to "bind"--that is, to
"retain"(12)--nothing subsequently, unless perchance such (sins) as one may
have committed against the Lord, not against a brother. For the forgiveness
of (sins) committed in the case of a man is a prejudgment against the
remission of sins against God.

   What, now, (has this to do) with the Church, and) your (church),
indeed, Psychic? For, in accordance with the person of Peter, it is to
spiritual men that this power will correspondently appertain, either to an
apostle or else to a prophet. For the very Church itself is, properly and
principally, the Spirit Himself, in whom is the Trinity of the One
Divinity--Father, Son. and Holy Spirit.(13) (The Spirit) combines that
Church which the Lord has made to consist in "three." And thus, from that
time forward,(14) every number (of persons) who may have combined together
into this faith is accounted "a Church," from the Author and Consecrator
(of the Church). And accordingly "the Church," it is true, will forgive
sins: but (it will be) the Church of the Spirit, by means of a spiritual
man; not the Church which consists of a number of bishops. For the right
and arbitrament is the Lord's, not the servant's; God's Himself, not the
priest's.

CHAP. XXII.--OF MARTYRS, AND THEIR INTERCESSION ON BEHALF OF SCANDALOUS
OFFENDERS.

   But you go so far as to lavish this "power" upon martyrs 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,(1) are soft
ones--than adulterers beset him, fornicators gain access to him; instantly
prayers 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 prison than they who have lost(the fellowship
of) the Church! Men and women are violated  in the darkness with which the
habitual indulgence of lusts 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 "martyrdom" is necessary for sins committed
after "martyrdom." "Well, who on earth and in the flesh is faultless?" What
"martyr" (continues to be) an inhabitant of the world(2) supplicating?
pence in hand? subject to physician and usurer? Suppose, now, (your
"martyr") beneath the glaive, with head already steadily poised; suppose
him on the cross, 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 martyrdom:
who permits man to condone (offences) which are to be reserved for God, by
whom those (offfences) have been condemned without discharge, which not
even apostles (so far as I know)--martyrs withal themselves--have judged
condonable? In short, Paul had already "fought with beasts at Ephesus,"
when he decreed "destruction" to the incestuous person.(3) Let it suffice
to the martyr to have purged his own sins: it is the part of ingratitude or
of pride to lavish upon others also what one has obtained at a high price.
(4) Who has redeemed another's death by his own, but the Son of God alone?
For even in His very passion He set the robber free.(5) For to this end had
He come, that, being Himself pure from sin,(6) and in all respects holy,(7)
He might undergo death on behalf of sinners.(8) Similarly, you who emulate
Him in condoning sins, if you yourself have done no sin, 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?(9)

   I have, even now, a test whereby to prove (the presence of) Christ (in
you). If Christ is in the martyr for this reason, that the martyr may
absolve adulterers and fornicators, let Him tell publicly the secrets of
the heart, that He may thus concede (pardon to) sins; and He is Christ. For
thus it was that the Lord Jesus Christ showed His power: "Why think ye evil
in your hearts? For which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Thy sins are
remitted thee; or, Rise and walk? Therefore, that ye may know the Son of
man to have the power upon earth of remitting sins, I say to thee,
paralytic, Rise, and walk."(10) If the Lord set so much store by the proof
of His power as to reveal thoughts, and so impart health by His command,
lest He should not be believed to have the power of remitting sins; it is
not lawful for me to believe the same power (to reside) in any one, whoever
he be, without the same proofs. In the act, however, of urgently entreating
from a martyr pardon for adulterers and fornicators, you yourself confess
that crimes of that nature are not to be washed away except by the
martyrdom of the criminal himself, while you presume (they can be washed
away) by another's If this is so, then martyrdom will be another baptism.
For "I have withal," saith He, "another baptism."(11) Whence, too, it was
that there flowed out of the wound in the Lord's side water and blood, the
materials of either baptism? I ought, then, by the first baptism too to
(have the fight of) setting another free if I can by the second: and we
must necessarily force upon the mind (of our opponents this conclusion):
Whatever authority, whatever reason, restores ecclesiastical 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 apostate,
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 God 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
Church who have fallen in heat of passion, than they who have fallen in
hand-tohand combat.(1) 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 justly concessible--that which a voluntary, or that which an
involuntary, sinner implores? No one is compelled with his will to
apostatize; no  one against his will commits fornication. Lust is exposed
to no violence, except itself: it knows  no coercion whatever. Apostasy, on
the contrary, what ingenuities of butchery and tribes of penal inflictions
enforce! Which has more truly apostatized--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 Christian combatant--scars, of course, enviable in the eyes of Christ,
because they yearned after Conquest, and thus also glorious, because
failing to conquer they yielded; (scars) after which even the devil 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 apostasy was expiable! In their
case alone is the "flesh weak." Nay, no flesh so strong as that which
crushes out the Spirit!


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 4, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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