Chapter 18.—Of the Violence Which May Be Done to the Body by Another’s Lust, While the Mind Remains Inviolate.

But is there a fear that even another’s lust may pollute the violated?  It will not pollute, if it be another’s:  if it pollute, it is not another’s, but is shared also by the polluted.  But since purity is a virtue of the soul, and has for its companion virtue, the fortitude which will rather endure all ills than consent to evil; and since no one, however magnanimous and pure, has always the disposal of his own body, but can control only the consent and refusal of his will, what sane man can suppose that, if his body be seized and forcibly made use of to satisfy the lust of another, he thereby loses his purity?  For if purity can be thus destroyed, then assuredly purity is no virtue of the soul; nor can it be numbered among those good things by which the life is made good, but among the good things of the body, in the same category as strength, beauty, sound and unbroken health, and, in short, all such good things as may be diminished without at all diminishing the goodness and rectitude of our life.  But if purity be nothing better than these, why should the body be perilled that it may be preserved?  If, on the other hand, it belongs to the soul, then not even when the body is violated is it lost.  Nay more, the virtue of holy continence, when it resists the uncleanness of carnal lust, sanctifies even the body, and therefore when this continence remains unsubdued, even the sanctity of the body is preserved, because the will to use it holily remains, and, so far as lies in the body itself, the power also.

For the sanctity of the body does not consist in the integrity of its members, nor in their exemption from all touch; for they are exposed to various accidents which do violence to and wound them, and the surgeons who administer relief often perform operations that sicken the spectator.  A midwife, suppose, has (whether maliciously or accidentally, or through unskillfulness) destroyed the virginity of some girl, while endeavoring to ascertain it:  I suppose no one is so foolish as to believe that, by this destruction of the integrity of one organ, the virgin has lost anything even of her bodily sanctity.  And thus, so long as the soul keeps this firmness of purpose which sanctifies even the body, the violence done by another’s lust makes no impression on this bodily sanctity, which is preserved intact by one’s own persistent continence.  Suppose a virgin violates the oath she has sworn to God, and goes to meet her seducer with the intention of yielding to him, shall we say that as she goes she is possessed even of bodily sanctity, when already she has lost and destroyed that sanctity of soul which sanctifies the body?  Far be it from us to so misapply words.  Let us rather draw this conclusion, that while the sanctity of the soul remains even when the body is violated, the sanctity of the body is not lost; and that, in like manner, the sanctity of the body is lost when the sanctity of the soul is violated, though the body itself remains intact.  And therefore a woman who has been violated by the sin of another, and without any consent of her own, has no cause to put herself to death; much less has she cause to commit suicide in order to avoid such violation, for in that case she commits certain homicide to prevent a crime which is uncertain as yet, and not her own.

CAPUT XVIII. De aliena violentiarum libidine, quam in oppresso corpore meus invita perpetitur.

1. At enim, ne vel aliena polluat libido, metuitur. Non polluet, si aliena erit: si autem polluet, aliena non erit. Sed cum pudicitia virtus sit animi, comitemque habeat fortitudinem, qua potius quaelibet mala tolerare, quam malo consentire decernit; nullus autem magnanimus et pudicus in potestate habeat, quid de sua carne fiat, sed tantum quid annuat mente, vel renuat: quis eadem sana mente putaverit se perdere pudicitiam, si forte in apprehensa et oppressa carne sua exerceatur et expleatur libido non sua? Si enim hoc modo pudicitia perit, profecto pudicitia virtus animi non erit; nec pertinebit ad ea bona, quibus bene vivitur, sed in bonis corporis numerabitur; qualia sunt, vires, pulchritudo, sana integraque valetudo, ac si quid hujusmodi est: quae bona, etiam si minuantur, bonam justamque vitam omnino non minuunt. Quod si tale aliquid est pudicitia, utquid pro illa, ne amittatur, etiam cum periculo corporis laboratur? Si autem animi bonum est, etiam oppresso corpore non amittitur. Quin etiam sanctae continentiae bonum cum immunditiae carnalium concupiscentiarum non cedit, et ipsum corpus sanctificatur: et ideo cum eis non cedere inconcussa intentione persistit, nec de ipso corpore perit sanctitas , quia eo sancte utendi perseverat voluntas, et quantum in ipso est, etiam facultas.

2. Neque enim eo corpus sanctum est, quod ejus membra sunt integra, aut eo, quod nullo contrectantur attactu; cum possint diversis etiam casibus vulnerata vim perpeti, et medici aliquando saluti opitulantes haec ibi faciant, quae horret aspectus. Obstetrix 0032 virginis cujusdam integritatem manu velut explorans, sive malevolentia, sive inscitia, sive casu, dum inspicit, perdidit: non opinor quemquam tam stulte sapere, ut huic periisse aliquid existimet etiam de ipsius corporis sanctitate, quamvis membri illius integritate jam perdita. Quocirca proposito animi permanente, per quod etiam corpus sanctificari meruit, nec ipsi corpori aufert sanctitatem violentia libidinis alienae, quam servat perseverantia continentiae suae. An vero si aliqua femina mente corrupta, violatoque proposito quod Deo voverat, pergat vitianda ad deceptorem suum; adhuc eam pergentem sanctam vel corpore dicimus, ea sanctitate animi, per quam corpus sanctificabatur, amissa atque destructa? Absit hic error: et hinc potius admoneamur, ita non amitti corporis sanctitatem, manente animi sanctitate, etiam corpore oppresso, sicut amittitur corporis sanctitas violata animi sanctitate, etiam corpore intacto. Quamobrem non habet quod in se morte spontanea puniat femina, sine ulla sua consensione violenter oppressa, et alieno compressa peccato: quanto minus ante quam hoc fiat; ne admittatur homicidium certum, cum ipsum flagitium, quamvis alienum, adhuc pendet incertum?