FOENICATIOI^
FORMICATION
417
nothing.' The First Epistle of St. John is occupied with the exposure of intellectual formalism (for though the Gnostic tenets, against which it is directed, are regarded as the rankest heterodoxy, the principle *is the same). To imagine that we 'know God,' while not keeping His commandments (2^"''), or that we are ' in the light,' while hating our brother (2") ; to credit ourselves with ' knowing Christ ' in whom is no sin, while continuing in tlie practice of sin (3®), is to stand convicted of being a ' liar.' Only he who loves can know God, who is Love (4^).
3. Formalism within the ethical domain. — While religious observances and credal orthodoxy are always to be submitted to the test of ethics, the last hiding-place of formalism is within the ethical domain itself. There is the formalism to which the possession of a high moral ideal stands for high morality. This is scathingly rebuked by St. Paul in Ro 2i'-2*. The typical Jew gloried in the lofty moral standards of his race, ' resting upon the law,' ' approving the things that are excellent ' ; but ac- cording to the Apostle's indictment he too often regarded an enlightened sense of duty as the goal rather than as the starting-point of moral life. It is a still subtler formalism when the ethical impulse exhausts itself in lofty and generous sentiment, or in clothing such emotion with appropriate verbiage (Ja 21'-^^). This possibility is suggested, with a touch of delicate irony, in 1 Jn 3^^"**, where the law of self-sacrificing brotkerhood is first stated in its highest terms — ' We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,' and then, lest anj' one should mistake the emotion awakened by such magnificent expressions of duty for the discharge of duty itself, the issue is brought down to the pedestrian level of the everyday use of ' the world's goods ' for the relief of the need that is before one's eyes. Here, again, St. Paul is still bolder (1 Co 13^), pointing out that conduct may fill out to the utmost the ' form ' of self-sacrifice (' If I give all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned '), and yet lack the inward reality. Ethical reality is attested not by the sensational exploit, but by that 'walking in love' which is so inimitably described in the following verses.
LrrERATTRE.— A. Whjrte, Bunyan Characters, {. [1895] 132, 271, Bible Characters : ' Our Lord's Characters,' 1902, pp. 150, 284 ; Stopford A. Brooke, T/ie Fu/ht qf Faith, 1877, p. 51 ; John Foster, Lecturers, 1853, i. 131 ff.; J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, new ed., 1868, i. 21, 124, iv. 66 ; A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart, 1S86, p. 226 ; J. B. Mayor, The Epi.-itle of St. Jamex^, 1910; Robert Law, Tests of Life, 1909, pp. 208 ff., 231 ff., 279 ff. ROBERT LaW.
FORNICATION {tropvela, and cognates). — 1. Meaning of term. — (1) iropvela is used sometimes in the strict sense of ' prostitution ' or ' fornication ' (1 Co 6'^). It is thus diti'erent irom pioixeia, or 'adul- tery ' (He 13^ [cf. Mk T^i] Didache, 2 f. ). This strict sense, however, can be retained with certainty only when the two words occur side by side. In the pagan world, while ixoixela was regarded as sinful on a woman's part mainly on the ground that it infringed the husband's rights, fornication or sexual intercourse outside the marriage bond or even by husbands was allowable. St. Paul (1 Th 43ff.) demands chastity from married men. The wife (interpreting cr/ceDos as 'wife' [see Milligan's Thess., London, 1908, for opposite view]) is to be had in holiness and honour. Christian morality is contrasted with pagan in this respect. Illicit sexual intercourse with a married woman is not only an infringement of the husband's rights, but violence done to the Holy Ghost. Christianity regards fornication and adultery alike as sinful. Cato looked on fornication as a preventive against libidinous intrigues with married women (Horace, Sat. i. 2). Cicero says it was always practised VOL. I. — 27
and allowed {pro Ccelio, xx). It was defended not only as customary but as a necessity of nature. Alexander Severus furnished governors with con- cubines. The Cynic and early Stoic philosophers excused it on the ground that ' naturalia non sunt turpia.' This St. Paul combats (1 Co e^^'-O). It is not a natural thing like food ; for, while the nutritive system of man belongs to the perishing schema of this world, the body is the organ of the spirit and the temple of the Holy Ghost, bought by Christ for His o^^^l service. To unite it to a harlot is an act of sacrilege, of self - violation, and it breaks the union between Christ and the believer.
How diflerent this is from the lame censure of Epictetus {Enchir. 33) and the practice of Marcus Aurelius, who had his concubine (see Lecky, History of European Morals^, London, ISSS, ii. 314 ff.).
(2) iropvcia is used also in a generic sense, fioixeta being specific. In Pauline terminology noLxevw is found in quotations from the LXX (seventh com- mandment), while TTopveia is used for immorality in general (cf. Theophylact on Ro 1-^ : iraaav airXQs TTjv cLKadapalav rif rrjs iropvdas ovbpxj/rL irepU\a.^ev). This is probably the meaning in Ac 15-", though some interpret it of marriage within the prohibited degrees (Lv 18-"). The Jews allowed proselytes to marry even with their nearest relatives, and, according to John Lightfoot (Hor. Heb., new. ed., Oxford, 1859, iv. 132), the case of incest in Corinth (1 Co 5"-), where a Christian had married his father's wife, ^^ hile the father was possibly still alive, arose out of this custom. This is highly doubtful. In Ac 15^"- ^ iropveia is used in the general sense of immorality. We are not con- cerned in this article with the vexed question of what constituted fornication in the case of re-mar- riage after divorce. Our Lord's teaching on this point is doubtful, owing to the absence of the qualifying expression in Mark, although the exist- ence of the qualification in Matthew indicates that in the early Church re-marriage was allowed to tiie guiltless party. Whether, again, marriage within the prohibited degrees constituted iropvda is not discussed in the NT.