A in this area, adding in addition the military precept: “Flee,” he says, “fornication. Every sin, whatsoever a man does, is outside the body.” 1 For the soldiers of sensible wars, now indeed engaging in battle with opposing fronts, now employing flight, arrange their ranks. There is also a war of the soul, which is conducted prudently both by resisting and by fleeing. Paul, knowing this, who leads the army through an artful method of drawing up both kinds of ranks, now indeed commands that they stand bravely to join battle: “Stand, having girded your loins in truth;” 2 now, however, he counsels flight to deceive the enemies, saying, “Flee fornication.” If the war of unbelief rushes in, it is useful to resist it. But if a guileful battle line threatens, it is beautiful against such adversaries to set ambushes.
The bow of calumny is stretched; it is useful to engage face-to-face with a lie. But when a meretricious form shoots a dart, it is honorable to turn one’s back and flee from the opposing face. For fornication directs its dart against the eyes; therefore, it is necessary to remember the commander’s precept: “Flee fornication.” For it has something more to be feared than other crimes. For other sins indeed seem to abstain from the flesh of those who commit them; and that which has been done stops only in that which takes up the action: as in robberies, the damage is only of those from whom it was snatched. In the vice of envy, it erupts only against those who are envied. In sycophancies and calumnies, if credence is given to them, only he who is aimed at by them is called into danger. Likewise in these cases, those who have done the same, the misfortune is his against whom it was done. If anyone investigates the actions of wicked deeds, he will find those indeed who do the injury gaining; but those to whom the injury is done receiving the damage B. Fornication, however, does not admit such a division; nor does it separate the action of the one who suffered from the one who did it, but overthrows both at once, and binds them together in a common bond of pollution. The covetous can, when they inflict damage upon another, themselves be affected by no damage. But fornicators cannot besmirch the body with disgrace, without also being themselves affected by disgrace at the same time as the one who is affected by the disgrace. C Those who kill, in committing murder, it is possible that they are not killed at the same time as those who are slain. But those who have defiled the flesh, together partake of the defilement D. Fornicators, if they have defiled the flesh, are not permitted to be clean from the defilement.
Consider, however, for me in this matter the subtlety of Paul. “Flee,” he says, “fornication.” Why? Because “every sin, whatsoever a man does, is outside the body” (that is to say, not corrupting the nature of the body, and not consisting in the ignominy of the members, and not completed in the defilement of the body, but effected outside the damage of the body which did it); “but he who fornicates, sins against his own body,”
A not like the murderer who harms another while preserving his own body unwounded; not like the covetous man who seeks gain at the expense of another while taking care to avoid offense to his own flesh; but the fornicator is his own corrupter, and fastens upon himself the arrow of his own infamy. A thief dares to commit a crime in order to provide for his body; the fornicator, however, lies in wait for the robbery of his own flesh. The covetous man is incited to plunder by the thought of gain; but fornication is a ruinous loss to the dignity of the body. Envy constructs a path to crime and brings glory to another, but the fornicator fashions his own disgrace for himself. For what is more shameful than the carrier of the baggage of fornication? Every slavery to sin is shameful, for it dishonors the nobility of the soul; but the fornicator is a more shameful slave of sin. For assigned to draw mire from it, he gathers a heap of filth and performs an unclean work. Or is it not a terrible thing to be rolled in mud, to be chafed by baseness, and to have a body no different from a rag? For what is the difference between a rag and a fornicator? Because he is severed from the body of the Church, he is corrupted by a daily rotting, and being discarded he lies like a useless rag, and is trodden underfoot by all the demons. Within him the devil wipes off B his own putrefaction.
Moreover, the misery and unhappiness that fall under the perception of the fornicator’s wicked behavior are not less than that which is open and manifest. For he is to be shunned in his house, abominable in his dealings, an insult to those who approach him, a reproach to his enemies, a disgrace to his kinsmen, accursed to those who live with him, a deep melancholy to his parents, a public spectacle to his servants, a laughingstock and a tale to his neighbors; if he is eager to marry, he is rejected; as a husband, he is a man of suspicion. He is hateful to his children as a father, a contemptible counselor, an ungrateful benefactor, and even less grateful when he is the one in need; and even when dead, he labours more under a reputation for infamy. Paul, perceiving fornication to be the mother of such a multitude of evils, commands us this victorious flight, crying out: “Flee fornication.” C
This voice of Paul has now reminded me of the pure youth who conducted himself valiantly against the Egyptian fornication. And yet there were many things that could easily have moved the youth to be persuaded: an age susceptible to lust, the yoke of slavery, the amorous flattery of his mistress, the perpetual talk of an unchaste love, and the stealthy encouragement to lie together. “And it came to pass,” he says, “on such a day, that Joseph went into the house to do his work, and there was no one of those who were in the house within, and the mistress pulled his garments, saying, Lie with me.” Great is the dignity of temperance: it made the mistress the servant of the slave. The arrow of fornication was ignited, but it found no material to burn; rather, it was broken and dissolved upon his garment. She was saying, “Lie with me,” but temperance was calling out in return to the young man, “Watch with me”; and by his deeds he manifested his vigilance. For the intensity of his resolve did not doze off at her flatteries. His mind did not fall asleep at her incantations; rather, there was to him something more bitter than insult—
mistress, A when she beckoned, "Sleep with me." The devil stood ready as the pander to this adultery, and he clutched the garment together with the harlot and took part in the handles she was grabbing; but he did not know that he was wrestling with a veteran athlete of chastity, who easily stripped himself from her grasp. For, as it is written, he left his clothes in her hands, fled, and went outside. O nakedness more holy than a garment! What then is the frenzy of the Egyptian woman’s immodesty? She heaps her own evils upon Joseph. Running to her husband, she says, "You brought us a Hebrew boy to mock us; he said to your wife, who has until now kept your bed chaste: 'I will lie with you.' But when I raised my voice and cried out, he left his clothes with me and fled and went outside."
Again Joseph is slandered through his garment. B Formerly his brothers, having taken his tunic, slandered him wickedly through it, saying he had been devoured by a wild beast; now, having taken the tunic itself, she accuses him as a fornicator. The word of the Lord is fitting for Joseph: "They divided my garments among them, and upon my garment they cast a lie." C Sweet is that which is said of chastity to the army of the chaste; but to the weakness of the flesh, it is hard and laborious. O just care that God took for Joseph! He did not honor Joseph before the temptations, but showed the future through dreams, teaching that long before the time He prepared glory for the righteous; but He allowed him to be proved by temptations, stopping the ears of those who delight in reproaches and slanders. For if He had not given proof to Joseph, the slanderers would have said that these things happened by blind fortune. Joseph reigns among the Egyptians, and a youth rules over barbarians. What virtue did he show? For what virtue did he attain this? So that these things might not be said-about the righteous man, God allowed temptations to come upon him in advance, so that testimony might be given to that righteous man and the mouths of the slanderers might be sewn shut.
D Let us then avoid the darts that come at us from a harlot’s form. Let us close our eyes to lewdness; let inordinate pleasures be mocked by us; let temperance guard the flesh; let purity inhabit our members, so that the body may thus be a habitation of the Spirit. Let us write upon it this inscription, the terrifying warning to the unchaste, crying out: "If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him." [Truly, He does not wish to be separated from us even by a little; for what is more joyful to a father than to spend time with his beloved children? But since the Word calls us to the contests of piety, it behooves us to run to the enclosures of the Church, having summoned the aids of prayer. Furthermore, I exhort your charity: preserve the ecclesiastical order, and if any tumults arise, overcome them with patience and gentleness. For it is destined that, with]
is directed to be corrected by these turmoils. Be not perturbed by rumors, be not moved by trifles, but with us, who are companions upon the way, send forth prayers to God, that, strengthened by your prayers, we may say at all times, aided by divine powers: "I can do all things in Christ, who strengthens me." To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.]
BY THE SAME: A DISCOURSE TO THOSE WHO MOURN FOR THOSE WHO HAVE DEPARTED FROM THE PRESENT LIFE TO THE ETERNAL ONE
A DISCOURSE OF THE SAME, TEACHING THAT WE SHOULD NOT MOURN OVER THE DEATH OF THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP IN THE FAITH
(Translated by Pietro Francesco Zino)Those who consider the necessary order of our nature in those who depart from this life to be a calamity, and who accompany with grief and tears those who are migrating from this world to the heavenly fatherland, do not seem to A me to have considered the condition of this life, but rather to be affected in the same way as the majority of the common people, who, through a certain habit unworthy of a human being, love whatever is present to them as if it were a good, whatever sort of thing it may be. Yet those who, by reason and thought, are placed above the irrational nature, ought to have inclined their impulse only toward that which, by the judgment of reason, appears good and desirable, and not necessarily to choose that which, by some habit and unthinking attachment, appears pleasant and agreeable to them. Therefore, it seems good to me that, having by some device led them away from the disposition toward what is customary, I should transport them, so far as is possible, to a way of thinking that is better and more becoming to those who are endowed with reason. For in this way, the irrationality that is so eagerly pursued by the masses regarding their passions would be banished from human life. And our study of the discourse would arrive at the proposed theme B if, first, we examined what is truly good; then, if we were to contemplate the nature of the life we lead in the body; and, in addition to these, if we were to compare through contrast what is laid up for us by hope with our present circumstances. For in this way the contemplation would advance toward the goal of the discourse, so that the mind might be moved from the habits of the many to what is truly good. For since a certain natural affinity for the good resides in all human beings, and every choice moves toward this, proposing the goal of the good as the objective of all effort in life, for this very reason the lack of judgment concerning what is truly good is the cause of most of the sins that are habitually committed. For if the truly good were manifest to all, we would never miss that which is goodness by nature, nor would we voluntarily C be brought into the experience of evils,