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| To Diodorus.
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Letter CLX.2526
| 2526 Placed in 373
or 374. |
To Diodorus.2527
1. I have received
the letter which has reached me under the name of Diodorus, but in what
it contains creditable to any one rather than to Diodorus. Some
ingenious person seems to have assumed your name, with the intention of
getting credit with his hearers. It appears that he was asked by
some one if it was lawful to contract marriage with his deceased
wife’s sister; and, instead of shuddering at such a question, he
heard it unmoved, and quite boldly and bravely supported the unseemly
desire. Had I his letter by me I would have sent it you, and you
would have been able to defend both yourself and the truth. But
the person who showed it me took it away again, and carried it about as a kind of trophy
of triumph against me who had forbidden it from the beginning,
declaring that he had permission in writing. Now I have written
to you that I may attack that spurious document with double strength,
and leave it no force whereby it may injure its readers.
2. First of all I have to urge, what is of most
importance in such matters, our own custom, which has the force of law,
because the rules have been handed down to us by holy men. It is
as follows: if any one, overcome by impurity, falls into unlawful
intercourse with two sisters, this is not to be looked upon as
marriage, nor are they to be admitted at all into the Church until they
have separated from one another. Wherefore, although it were
possible to say nothing further, the custom would be quite enough to
safeguard what is right. But, since the writer of the letter has
endeavoured to introduce this mischief into our practice by a false
argument, I am under the necessity of not omitting the aid of
reasoning; although in matters which are perfectly plain every
man’s instinctive sentiment is stronger than argument.
3. It is written, he says, in Leviticus
“Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to
uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life
time.”2528
From this it
is plain, he argues, that it is lawful to take her when the wife is
dead. To this my first answer shall be, that whatever the law
says, it says to those who are under the law; otherwise we shall be
subject to circumcision, the sabbath, abstinence from meats. For
we certainly must not, when we find anything which falls in with our
pleasures, subject ourselves to the yoke of slavery to the law; and
then, if anything in the law seems hard, have recourse to the freedom
which is in Christ. We have been asked if it is written that one
may be taken to wife after her sister. Let us say what is safe
and true, that it is not written. But to deduce by sequence of
argument what is passed over in silence is the part of a legislator,
not of one who quotes the articles of the law. Indeed, on these
terms, any one who likes will be at liberty to take the sister, even in
the lifetime of the wife. The same sophism fits in this case
also. It is written, he says, “Thou shalt not take a wife
to vex her:” so that, apart from vexation, there is no
prohibition to take her. The man who wants to indulge his desire
will maintain that the relationship of sisters is such that they cannot
vex one another. Take away the reason given for the prohibition
to live with both, and what is there to prevent a man’s taking
both sisters? This is not written, we shall say. Neither is
the former distinctly stated. The deduction from the argument
allows liberty in both cases. But a solution of the difficulty
might be found by going a little back to what is behind the
enactment. It appears that the legislator does not include every
kind of sin, but particularly prohibits those of the Egyptians, from
among whom Israel had gone forth, and of the Canaanites among whom they
were going. The words are as follows, “After the doings of
the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the
doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not
do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.”2529
It is probable that this kind of sin
was not practised at that time among the Gentiles. Under these
circumstances the lawgiver was, it may be supposed, under no necessity
of guarding against it; the unwritten custom sufficed to condemn the
crime. How then is it that while forbidding the greater he was
silent about the less? Because the example of the patriarch
seemed injurious to many who indulged their flesh so far as to live
with sisters in their life time. What ought to be my
course? To quote the Scriptures, or to work out what they leave
unsaid? In these laws it is not written that a father and son
ought not to have the same concubine, but, in the prophet, it is
thought deserving of the most extreme condemnation, “A man and
his father” it is said “will go in unto the same
maid.”2530
And how many
other forms of unclean lust have been found out in the devils’
school, while divine scripture is silent about them, not choosing to
befoul its dignity with the names of filthy things and condemning their
uncleanness in general terms! As the apostle Paul says,
“Fornication and all uncleanness…let it not be once named
among you as becometh saints,”2531
thus including
the unspeakable doings of both males and females under the name of
uncleanness. It follows that silence certainly does not give
license to voluptuaries.
4. I, however, maintain that this point has
not been left in silence, but that the lawgiver has made a distinct
prohibition. The words “None of you shall approach to any
one that is near of kin to him, to uncover their
nakedness,”2532
embraces also this
form of kinsmanship,
for what could be more akin to a man than his own wife, or rather than
his own flesh? “For they are no more twain but one
flesh.”2533
So, through
the wife, the sister is made akin to the husband. For as he shall
not take his wife’s mother, nor yet his wife’s daughter,
because he may not take his own mother nor his own daughter, so he may
not take his wife’s sister, because he may not take his own
sister. And, on the other hand, it will not be lawful for the
wife to be joined with the husband’s kin, for the rights of
relationship hold good on both sides. But, for my part, to every
one who is thinking about marriage I testify that, “the fashion
of this world passeth away,”2534
and the time
is short: “it remaineth that both they that have wives be
as though they had none.”2535
If he
improperly quotes the charge “Increase and
multiply,”2536
I laugh at him,
for not discerning the signs of the times. Second marriage is
a remedy against fornication, not a means of lasciviousness.
“If they cannot contain,” it is said “let them
marry;”2537
but if they
marry they must not break the law.
5. But they whose souls are blinded by
dishonourable lust do not regard even nature, which from old time
distinguished the names of the family. For under what
relationship will those who contract these unions name their
sons? Will they call them brothers or cousins of one
another? For, on account of the confusion, both names will
apply. O man, do not make the aunt the little one’s
stepmother; do not arm with implacable jealousy her who ought to
cherish them with a mother’s love. It is only stepmothers
who extend their hatred even beyond death; other enemies make a truce
with the dead; stepmothers begin their hatred after death.2538
| 2538 On the
ancient dislike of stepmothers, cf. Herod. iv. 154, and
Eurip., Alcestis 309, where they are said to be as
dangerous to the children as vipers. Menander writes
δεινότερον
οὐδὲν ἄλλο
μητρυιᾶς
κακόν. | The sum of what I say is this.
If any one wants to contract a lawful marriage, the whole world is open
to him: if he is only impelled by lust, let him be the more
restricted, “that he may know how to possess his vessel in
sanctification and honour, not in the lust of
concupiscence.”2539
| 2539
1 Thess. iv.
4. So A.V.,
apparently taking σκεῦος for
body with Chrys., Theodoret, and others. The Greek
is, most simply, not “possess,” but get, and
is in favour of the interpretation of Theod. of Mops., Augustine,
and others, “get his wife.” See
Ellicott, Thess. p. 53. | I should like
to say more, but the limits of my letter leave me no further
room. I pray that my exhortation may prove stronger than lust, or
at least that this pollution may not be found in my own province.
Where it has been ventured on there let it
abide.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
