14. It must be said, moreover, that adultery is not pleasure, but mutual contempt; nor can it delight, because it kills both the soul and modesty. Let the soul restrain the provocations of the flesh; let it bridle the impulses of the body. For it has received this power, that the limbs should be subservient to its command; and as a lawful and accomplished charioteer, it should turn about the fleshly impulses when they lift themselves above the allowed limits of the body, by the reins of the heavenly precepts, lest that chariot of the body, carried away beyond its limits, should hurry into its own peril the charioteer himself as well as it. But in the midst of these things, nay, before these things, in opposition to disturbances and all vices, help must be sought for from the divine camp; for God alone, who has condescended to make men, is powerful also to afford sufficient help to men. I have composed a few words, because I did not propose to write a volume, but to send you an address. Look ye to the Scriptures; seek out for yourselves from those precepts greater illustrations of this matter. [4885] Beloved brethren, farewell.
[4870] [Not reckoned by Erasmus as worthy of Cyprian. Pamelius thinks otherwise.]
[4871] [This illustrates pp. 322 and 389, note 7.]
[4872] ["So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity, etc."--Milton, Comus, 455.]
[4873] [Holy men have generally recognised this rule as ennobling the estate of matrimony. See Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living, cap. ii. sec. 3.]
[4874] [This natural law, renewed in Christ, is part of the honour which He has restored to womanhood; honouring His mother therein as the second Eve. Matt. xix. 8; Gen. ii. 24.]
[4875] Matt. xix. 5.
[4876] Eph. v. 28, 29.
[4877] Lev. xx. 10.
[4878] 1 Thess. iv. 3.
[4879] 1 Cor. vi. 15.
[4880] "Irrogare."
[4881] [Tertullian, vol. iv. pp. 74, 97, etc.]
[4882] This passage is allowed by all to be corrupt. If we were to punctuate differently, to insert "nisi" before "consummata," and change "longe est" into "non deesset," we get the following sense: "Therefore we should always meditate, brethren, on chastity, as circumstances teach us, that it may be more easy for us. It depends on no arts; for what is it but perfected will, which, if it were not checked, would certainly not fail to arise? And it is our own will, too: therefore it has not to be acquired, but we have to cherish what is already our own."
[4883] ["Kalendarium cujusvis excedunt." The kalendaria were tablets of monthly accounts, in which the monthly interest due, etc., were set down. "Exceed the entire monthly income" would be better. Tertullian uses the same word, "exhaust thekalendarium," rendered by our Edinburgh translator (vol. iv. p. 18), a "fortune." In this treatise Tertullian is constantly copied and quoted.]
[4884] [Laughter, vol. ii. p. 249, and contact p. 291.]
[4885] [Everything in antiquity breathes this spirit of "searching the Scriptures." Compare Hippol., p. 219, note 4, supra.]
Exhortation to Repentance. [4886]
------------------------
That all sins may be forgiven him who has turned to God with his whole heart.
In the eighty-eighth Psalm: "If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, and keep not my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes; nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not scatter away from them." [4887]
Also in Isaiah: "Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, When thou shalt turn and mourn, then thou shalt be saved, and shalt know where thou wast." [4888]
Also in the same place: "Woe unto you, children of desertion, saith the Lord! ye have made counsel not by me, and my covenant not by my Spirit, to add sin to sin." [4889]
Also in Jeremiah: "Withdraw thy foot from a rough way, and thy face from thirst. But she said, I will be comforted, I am willing; for she loved strangers, and went after them." [4890]
Also in Isaiah: "Be ye converted, because ye devise a deep and wicked counsel." [4891]
Also in the same place: "I am He, I am He that blotteth out thy iniquities, and will not remember them; but do thou remember them, and let us be judged together; do thou first tell thine unrighteousnesses."
Also in the same: "Seek the Lord; and when ye shall have found Him, call upon Him. But when He has drawn near to you, let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him be converted to the Lord, and mercy shall be prepared for him, because He does not much [4893] forgive your sins." [4894]
Also in the same: "Remember these things, O Jacob and Israel, because thou art my servant. I have called thee my servant; and thou, Israel, forget me not. Lo, I have washed away thy unrighteousness as,...and thy sins as a raincloud. Be converted to me, and I will redeem thee."
Also in the same: "Have these things in mind, and groan. Repent, ye that have been seduced; be converted in heart unto me, and have in mind the former ages, because I am God." [4896]
Also in the same: "For a very little season I have forsaken thee, and with great mercy I will pity thee. In a very little wrath I turned away my face from thee; in everlasting mercy I will pity thee." [4897]
Also in the same: "Thus said the Most High, who dwelleth on high, for ever Holy in the holies, His name is the Lord, the Most High, resting in the holy places, and giving calmness of mind to the faint-hearted, and giving life to those that are broken-hearted: I am not angry with you for ever, neither will I be avenged in all things on you: for my Spirit shall go forth from me, and I have made all inspiration; and on account of a very little sin I have grieved him, and have turned away my face from him; and he has suffered the vile man, and has gone away sadly in his ways. I have seen his ways, and have healed him, and I have comforted him, and I have given to him the true consolation, and peace upon peace to those who are afar off, and to those that are near. And the Lord said, I have healed them; but the unrighteous, as a troubled sea, are thus tossed about and cannot rest. There is no joy to the wicked, saith the Lord." [4898]
Also in Jeremiah: "Shall a bride forget her adornment, or [4899] a virgin the girdle of her breast? But my people has forgotten my days, [4900] whereof there is no number." [4901]
Also in the same: "For a decree, I will speak upon the nation or upon the kingdom, or I will take them away and destroy them. And if the nation should be converted from its evils, I will repent of the ills which [4902] I have thought to do unto them. And I will speak the decree upon the nation or the people, that I should rebuild it and plant it; and they will do evil before me, that they should not hearken to my voice, and I will repent of the good things which I spoke of doing to them." [4903]
Also in the same: "Return to me, O dwelling of Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not harden my face upon you; because I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not be angry against you for ever." [4904]
Also in the same: "Be converted, ye children that have departed, saith the Lord; because I will rule over you, and will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you into Sion: and I will give you shepherds after my heart, and they shall feed you, feeding you with discipline." [4905]
Also in the same: "Be converted, ye children who are turning, and I will heal your affliction." [4906]
Also in the same: "Wash thine heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that thou mayest be healed: how long shall there be in thee thoughts of thy sorrows?" [4907]
Also in the same: "Thus saith the Lord, Does not he that falleth arise? or he that turns away, shall he not be turned back? Because this people hath turned itself away by a shameless vision, and they have persisted in their presumption, and would not be converted." [4908]
Also in the same: "There is no man that repenteth of his iniquity, saying, What have I done? The runner has failed from his course, as the sweating horse in his neighing." [4909]
Also in the same: "Therefore let every one of you turn from his evil way, and make your desires better. And they said, We will be comforted, because we will go after your [4910] inventions, and every one of us will do the sins which please his own heart." [4911]
Also in the same: "Pour down as a torrent tears, day and night give thyself no rest, let not the pupil of thine eye be silent." [4912]
Also in the same: "Let us search out our ways, and be turned to the Lord. Let us purge our hearts with our hands, and let us look unto the Lord who dwelleth in the heavens. We have sinned, and we have provoked Thee, and Thou hast not been propitiated." [4913]
Also in the same: "And the Lord said to me in the days of Josias the king, Thou hast seen what the dwelling of the house, [4914] the house of Israel, has done to me. It has gone away upon every lofty mountain, and has gone under every shady [4915] tree, and has committed fornication there; and I said, after she had committed all these fornications, Return unto me, and she has not returned." [4916]
Also in the same: "The Lord will not reject for ever; and when He has made low, He will have pity according to the multitude of His mercy. Because He will not bring low from His whole heart, neither will He reject the children of men." [4917]
Also in Ezekiel: "And the righteous shall not be able to be saved in the day of transgression. When I shall say to the righteous, Thou shalt surely live; but [4918] he will trust to his own righteousness, and will do iniquity: all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; in his iniquity which he has done, in that he shall die. And when I shall say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and he turns himself from his sin, and doeth righteousness and judgment, and restoreth to the debtor his pledge, and giveth back his robbery, and walketh in the precepts of life, that he may do no iniquity, he shall surely live, and shall not die; none of his sins which he hath sinned shall be stirred up against him: because he hath done justice and judgment, he shall live in them." [4919]
Also in the same: "I am the Lord, because I bring low the high tree, and exalt the low tree, and dry up the green tree, and cause the dry tree to flourish." [4920]
Also in the same: "And thou, son of man, say unto the house of Israel, Even as ye have spoken, saying, Our errors and our iniquities are in us, and we waste away in them, and how shall we live? Say unto them, I live, saith the Lord: if I will the death of a sinner, only let him turn from his way, and he shall live." [4921]
Also in the same: "I the Lord have built up the ruined places, and have planted the wasted places." [4922]
Also in the same: "And the wicked man, if he turn himself from all his iniquities that he has done, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment, and justice, and mercy, shall surely live, and shall not die. None of his sins which he has committed shall be in remembrance; in his righteousness which he hath done he shall live. Do I willingly desire the death of the unrighteous man, saith Adonai the Lord, rather than that he should turn him from his evil way, that he should live?" [4923]
Also in the same: "Be ye converted, and turn you from all your wickedneses, and they shall not be to you for a punishment. Cast away from you all your iniquities which ye have wickedly committed against me, and make to yourselves a new heart and a new spirit; and why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith Adonai the Lord." [4924]
Also in Daniel: "And after the end of the days, I Nabuchodonosor lifted up my eyes to heaven, and my sense returned to me, and I praised the Most High, and blessed the King of heaven, and praised Him that liveth for ever: because His power is eternal, His kingdom is for generations, [4925] and all who inhabit the earth are as nothing." [4926]