Tecum et adulterium est, tecum coitusque nefandus,
Foedus, femineusque, urbs pessima, plane impura.
Econtra autem pudicos admiratur:--
Quos desiderium tenuit nec turpe cubilis
Alterius, nec tetra invisaque stupra tulerunt
Ulla unquam maribus.
[1506] For many think such things to be pleasures only which are against nature, such as these sins of theirs. And those who are better than they, know them to be sins, but are overcome by pleasures, and darkness is the veil of their vicious practices. For he violates his marriage adulterously who uses it in a meretricious way, and hears not the voice of the Instructor, crying, "The man who ascends his bed, who says in his soul, Who seeth me? darkness is around me, and the walls are my covering, and no one sees my sins. Why do I fear lest the Highest will remember?" [1507] Most wretched is such a man, dreading men's eyes alone, and thinking that he will escape the observation of God. "For he knoweth not," says the Scripture, "that brighter ten thousand times than the sun are the eyes of the Most High, which look on all the ways of men, and cast their glance into hidden parts." Thus again the Instructor threatens them, speaking by Isaiah: "Woe be to those who take counsel in secret, and say, Who seeth us?" [1508] For one may escape the light of sense, but that of the mind it is impossible to escape. For how, says Heraclitus, can one escape the notice of that which never sets? Let us by no means, then, veil our selves with the darkness; for the light dwells in us. "For the darkness," it is said, "comprehendeth it not." [1509] And the very night itself is illuminated by temperate reason. The thoughts of good men Scripture has named "sleepless lamps;" [1510] although for one to attempt even to practice concealment, with reference to what he does, is confessedly to sin. And every one who sins, directly wrongs not so much his neighbour if he commits adultery, as himself, because he has committed adultery, besides making himself worse and less thought of. For he who sins, in the degree in which he sins, becomes worse and is of less estimation than before; and he who has been overcome by base pleasures, has now licentiousness wholly attached to him. Wherefore he who commits fornication is wholly dead to God, and is abandoned by the Word as a dead body by the spirit. For what is holy, as is right, abhors to be polluted. But it is always lawful for the pure to touch the pure. Do not, I pray, put off modesty at the same time that you put off your clothes; because it is never right for the just man to divest himself of continence. For, lo, this mortal shall put on immortality; when the insatiableness of desire, which rushes into licentiousness, being trained to self-restraint, and made free from the love of corruption, shall consign the man to everlasting chastity. "For in this world they marry and and are given in marriage." [1511] But having done with the works of the flesh, and having been clothed with immortality, the flesh itself being pure, we pursue after that which is according to the measure of the angels.
Thus in the Philebus, Plato, who had been the disciple of the barbarian [1512] philosophy, mystically called those Atheists who destroy and pollute, as far as in them lies, the Deity dwelling in them--that is, the Logos--by association with their vices. Those, therefore, who are consecrated to God must never live mortally (thnetos). "Nor," as Paul says, "is it meet to make the members of Christ the members of an harlot; nor must the temple of God be made the temple of base affections." [1513] Remember the four and twenty thousand that were rejected for fornication. [1514] But the experiences of those who have committed fornication, as I have already said, are types which correct our lusts. Moreover, the Pædagogue warns us most distinctly: "Go not after thy lusts, and abstain from thine appetites; [1515] for wine and women will remove the wise; and he that cleaves to harlots will become more daring. Corruption and the worm shall inherit him, and he shall be held up as public example to greater shame." [1516] And again--for he wearies not of doing good--"He who averts his eyes from pleasure crowns his life."
Non est ergo justum vinci a rebus venereis, nec libidinibus stolide inhiare, nec a ratione alienis appetitionibus moveri, nec desiderare pollui. Ei autem soli, qui uxorem duxit, ut qui tunc sit agricola, serere permissum est; quando tempus sementem admittit. Adversus aliam autem intemperantiam, optimum quidem est medicamentum, ratio. [1517] Fert etiam auxilium penuria satietatis, per quam accensæ libidines prosiliunt ad voluptates.
[1489] For obvious reasons, we have given the greater part of this chapter in the Latin version. [Much of this chapter requires this sacrifice to a proper verecundia; but the learned translators have possibly been too cautious, erring, however, on the right side of the question.]
[1490] [For the substance of this chapter, see Kaye, p. 84.]
[1491] Gen. i. 27, 28.
[1492] Deut. xiv. 7.
[1493] [He lays down the law, that marriage was instituted for the one result of replenishing the earth; and he thinks certain unclean animals of the Mosaic system to be types of the sensuality which is not less forbidden to the married than to others.]
[1494] Rom. i. 26, 27.
[1495] Jer. xii. 9. [The empirical science of the day is here enlarged upon, by Clement, for he cannot forbear to make lust detestable by a natural parable of the foul hyæna.]
[1496] Ex. xx. 14.
[1497] Jer. v. 8.
[1498] Lev. xviii. 22.
[1499] Lev. xviii. 20.
[1500] Prov. xix. 29.
[1501] Ecclus. xxiii. 4, 5, 6.
[1502] Gen. ii. 23.
[1503] [Tamen possunt senes et steriles matrimonium sanctum contrahere, et de re conjugali aliter docet Lanctantius de naturâ singulari mulierum argute disserens: q. v. in libro ejus de vero cultu, vi. cap. 23, p. 280, ed. Basiliæ 1521.]
[1504] [Naturâ duce, sub lege Logi, omnia fidelibus licent non omnia tamen expediunt. Conf Paulum, I., Ad Corinth, vi. 12.]
[1505] Eph. v. 3.
[1506] [He has argued powerfully on the delicacy and refinement which should be observed in Christian marriage, to which Lactantius in the next age will be found attributing the glory of chastity, as really as to a pure celibacy. He now continues the argument in a form which our translators do not scruple to English.]
[1507] Ecclus. xxiii. 18, 19.
[1508] Isa. xxix. 15.
[1509] John i. 5.
[1510] Wisd. vii. 10 is probably referred to.
[1511] Matt xxii. 30.
[1512] That is, the Jewish.
[1513] 1 Cor. vi. 15.
[1514] [1 Cor. x. 8; Num. xxv. 1-9. Clement says twenty-four thousand, with the Old Testament, but St. Paul says twenty-three thousand; on which, ad locum, see Speaker's Commentary.]
[1515] Ecclus. xviii. 30.
[1516] Ecclus. xix. 2, 3, 5.
[1517] [Right reason is the best remedy against all excesses, argues our author, but always subject to the express law of the Gospel.]