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| General Consistency of the Apostle.
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Chapter
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?”862
—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.”863
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;”864
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”865
—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;”866
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:”867
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.”868
“The Lord
for the body:” yes; for “the Word was made
flesh.”869
“Moreover, God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us
through His own power;”870
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.”871
“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.”872
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.”873
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:874
“glorify and extol the Lord in
your body.”875
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.”876
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.”877
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.”878
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.”879
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.”880
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, requiring (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,881
how they may please
their spouse.”882
Thus he
pronounces that the “preserver of a virgin” doeth
“better” than her “giver in marriage.”883
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.884
Thus he
commends as Divine all these counsels of continence: “I
think,”885
he says, “I too
have the Spirit of God.”886
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. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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