I.

Modesty, the flower of manners, the honour of our bodies, the grace of the sexes, the integrity of the blood, the guarantee of our race, the basis of sanctity, the pre-indication of every good disposition; rare though it is, and not easily perfected, and scarce ever retained in perpetuity, will yet up to a certain point linger in the world, if nature shall have laid the preliminary groundwork of it, discipline persuaded to it, censorial rigour curbed its excesses—on the hypothesis, that is, that every mental good quality is the result either of birth, or else of training, or else of external compulsion.

But as the conquering power of things evil is on the increase—which is the characteristic of the last times1    Comp. 2 Tim. iii. 1–5; Matt. xxiv. 12.—things good are now not allowed either to be born, so corrupted are the seminal principles; or to be trained, so deserted are studies; nor to be enforced, so disarmed are the laws.  In fact, (the modesty) of which we are now beginning (to treat) is by this time grown so obsolete, that it is not the abjuration but the moderation of the appetites which modesty is believed to be; and he is held to be chaste enough who has not been too chaste.  But let the world’s2    Sæculi. modesty see to itself, together with the world3    Sæculo. itself:  together with its inherent nature, if it was wont to originate in birth; its study, if in training; its servitude, if in compulsion:  except that it had been even more unhappy if it had remained only to prove fruitless, in that it had not been in God’s household that its activities had been exercised.  I should prefer no good to a vain good:  what profits it that that should exist whose existence profits not?  It is our own good things whose position is now sinking; it is the system of Christian modesty which is being shaken to its foundation—(Christian modesty), which derives its all from heaven; its nature, “through the laver of regeneration;”4    Tit. iii. 5. its discipline, through the instrumentality of preaching; its censorial rigour, through the judgments which each Testament exhibits; and is subject to a more constant external compulsion, arising from the apprehension or the desire of the eternal fire or kingdom.5    Comp. Matt. xxv. 46.

In opposition to this (modesty), could I not have acted the dissembler?  I hear that there has even been an edict set forth, and a peremptory one too.  The Pontifex Maximus6    [This is irony; a heathen epithet applied to Victor (or his successor), ironically, because he seemed ambitious of superiority over other bishops.]—that is, the bishop of bishops7    Zephyrinus (de Genoude): Zephyrinus or (his predecessor) Victor.  J. B. Lightfoot, Ep. ad Phil., 221, 222, ed. 1, 1868.  [See also Robertson, Ch. Hist., p. 121.  S.]—issues an edict:  “I remit, to such as have discharged (the requirements of) repentance, the sins both of adultery and of fornication.”  O edict, on which cannot be inscribed, “Good deed!”  And where shall this liberality be posted up?  On the very spot, I suppose, on the very gates of the sensual appetites, beneath the very titles of the sensual appetites.  There is the place for promulgating such repentance, where the delinquency itself shall haunt.  There is the place to read the pardon, where entrance shall be made under the hope thereof.  But it is in the church that this (edict) is read, and in the church that it is pronounced; and (the church) is a virgin!  Far, far from Christ’s betrothed be such a proclamation!  She, the true, the modest, the saintly, shall be free from stain even of her ears.  She has none to whom to make such a promise; and if she have had, she does not make it; since even the earthly temple of God can sooner have been called by the Lord a “den of robbers,”8    Matt. xxi. 13; Mark xi. 17; Luke xix. 46; Jer. vii. 11. than of adulterers and fornicators.

This too, therefore, shall be a count in my indictment against the Psychics; against the fellowship of sentiment also which I myself formerly maintained with them; in order that they may the more cast this in my teeth for a mark of fickleness.  Repudiation of fellowship is never a pre-indication of sin.  As if it were not easier to err with the majority, when it is in the company of the few that truth is loved!  But, however, a profitable fickleness shall no more be a disgrace to me, than I should wish a hurtful one to be an ornament.  I blush not at an error which I have ceased to hold, because I am delighted at having ceased to hold it, because I recognise myself to be better and more modest.  No one blushes at his own improvement.  Even in Christ, knowledge had its stages of growth;9    See Luke ii. 52. through which stages the apostle, too, passed.  “When I was a child,” he says, “as a child I spake, as a child I understood; but when I became a man, those (things) which had been the child’s I abandoned:”10    1 Cor. xiii. 11, one clause omitted.  so truly did he turn away from his early opinions:  nor did he sin by becoming an emulator not of ancestral but of Christian traditions,11    Comp. Gal. i. 14 with 2 Thess. ii. 15. wishing even the precision of them who advised the retention of circumcision.12    See Gal. v. 12.  And would that the same fate might befall those, too, who obtruncate the pure and true integrity of the flesh; amputating not the extremest superficies, but the inmost image of modesty itself, while they promise pardon to adulterers and fornicators, in the teeth of the primary discipline of the Christian Name; a discipline to which heathendom itself bears such emphatic witness, that it strives to punish that discipline in the persons of our females rather by defilements of the flesh than tortures; wishing to wrest from them that which they hold dearer than life!  But now this glory is being extinguished, and that by means of those who ought with all the more constancy to refuse concession of any pardon to defilements of this kind, that they make the fear of succumbing to adultery and fornication their reason for marrying as often as they please—since “better it is to marry than to burn.”13    1 Cor. vii. 9, repeatedly quoted.  No doubt it is for continence sake that incontinence is necessary—the “burning” will be extinguished by “fires!”  Why, then, do they withal grant indulgence, under the name of repentance, to crimes for which they furnish remedies by their law of multinuptialism?  For remedies will be idle while crimes are indulged, and crimes will remain if remedies are idle.  And so, either way, they trifle with solicitude and negligence; by taking emptiest precaution against (crimes) to which they grant quarter, and granting absurdest quarter to (crimes) against which they take precaution:  whereas either precaution is not to be taken where quarter is given, or quarter not given where precaution is taken; for they take precaution, as if they were unwilling that something should be committed; but grant indulgence, as if they were willing it should be committed:  whereas, if they be unwilling it should be committed, they ought not to grant indulgence; if they be willing to grant indulgence, they ought not to take precaution.  For, again, adultery and fornication will not be ranked at the same time among the moderate and among the greatest sins, so that each course may be equally open with regard to them—the solicitude which takes precaution, and the security which grants indulgence.  But since they are such as to hold the culminating place among crimes, there is no room at once for their indulgence as if they were moderate, and for their precaution as if they were greatest.  But by us precaution is thus also taken against the greatest, or, (if you will), highest (crimes, viz.,) in that it is not permitted, after believing, to know even a second marriage, differentiated though it be, to be sure, from the work of adultery and fornication by the nuptial and dotal tablets:  and accordingly, with the utmost strictness, we excommunicate digamists, as bringing infamy upon the Paraclete by the irregularity of their discipline.  The self-same liminal limit we fix for adulterers also and fornicators; dooming them to pour forth tears barren of peace, and to regain from the Church no ampler return than the publication of their disgrace.

CAPUT PRIMUM.

Pudicitia flos morum, honor corporum, decor sexuum, integritas sanguinis, fides generis, fundamentum sanctitatis, praejudicium omnis bonae mentis; quamquam rara, nec facile perfecta, vixque perpetua; tamen aliquatenus in saeculo morabitur, si natura praestruxerit, si disciplina persuaserit, 0980B censura compresserit. Siquidem omne animi bonum aut nascitur, aut eruditur, aut cogitur. Sed ut mala magis vincunt, quod ultimorum temporum ratio est; bona jam nec nasci licet, ita corrupta sunt semina: nec erudiri, ita deserta sunt studia; nec cogi, ita exarmata sunt jura. Denique, de qua incipimus, cousque jam exolevit, ut non ejuratio, sed moderatio libidinum pudicitia credatur; isque satis castus habeatur, qui minus castus fuerit. Sed viderit saeculi pudicitia cum saeculo ipso, cum suo ingenio si nascebatur, cum suo studio si erudiebatur, cum suo servitio si cogebatur; nisi quod infelicior etiam, si stetisset, ut infuctuosa, quae non apud Deum egisset. Malim nullum bonum, quam vanum . Quid prodest esse, quod esse non prodest? 0980C Nostrorum bonorum status jam exigitur , christianae pudicitiae ratio concutitur: quae omnia de coelo trahit, et naturam per lavacrum regenerationis, et disciplinam per instrumentum praedicationis, et censuram per judicia ex utroque Testamento, et coacta constantius ex metu et voto aeterni ignis et regni. Adversus hanc nonne dissimulare potuissem? Audio etiam edictum esse propositum, et quidem peremptorium, 0981A Pontifex scilicet maximus , quod est Episcopus Episcoporum, edicit: «Ego et moechia et fornicationis delicta, poenitentia functis dimitto .» O edictum, cui adscribi non poterit, Bonum factum ! Et ubi proponetur liberalitas ista? Ibidem, opinor, in ipsis libidinum januis, sub ipsis libidinum titulis. Illic ejusmodi poenitentia promulganda est, ubi delinquentia ipsa versabitur; illic legenda est venia, quo cum spe ejus intrabitur. Sed hoc in Ecclesia legitur, et in Ecclesia pronuntiatur, et virgo est? Absit, absit a sponsa Christi tale praeconium. Illa quae vera est, quae pudica, quae sancta, carebit etiam aurium maculis. Non habet quibus hoc repromittat; et si habuerit, non repromittit: quoniam et terrenum Dei templum citius spelunca latronum, 0981B (Matth. XXI, 13), appellari potuit a Domino, quam moechorum et fornicatorum. Erit igitur et hic adversus Psychicos titulus, adversus meae quoque sententiae retro penes illos societatem, quo magis hoc mihi in notam levitatis objectent. Nunquam societatis repudium delicti praejudicium est, quasi non facilius 0982A sit errare cum pluribus, quando veritas cum paucis ametur. Atenim me non magis dedecorabit utilis levitas, quam ornarit nocens. Non suffundor errore quo carui, quia caruisse delector, quia meliorem me et pudiciorem recognosco. Nemo proficiens erubescit. Habet et in Christo scientia aetates suas, per quas devolutus est et Apostolus. Cum parvulus, inquit, essem, tanquam parvulus loquebar, tanquam parvulus sapiebam: at ubi vir sum factus, ea quae parvuli fuerant, evacuavi (I Cor. XIII, 11). Adeo divertit a sententiis pristinis, nec idcirco deliquit, quod aemulator factus est, non paternarum traditionum (Gal. I, 14), sed christianarum; optans etiam ut praeciderentur qui circumcisionem detinendam suadebant (Gal. V, 11, 12). Atque utinam et isti qui meram et veram integritatem 0982B carnis obtruncant, amputantes non summam superficiem, sed intimam effigiem pudoris ipsius, cum moechis et fornicatoribus veniam pollicentur adversus principalem christiani nominis disciplinam, quam ipsum quoque saeculum usque adeo testatur, ut, si quando, eam in foeminis nostris inquinamentis 0983A potius carnis quam tormentis punire contendat, id volens eripere quod vitae anteponant! Sed jam haec gloria extinguitur, et quidem per eos quos tanto constantius oportuerat ejusmodi maculis nullam subscribere veniam, quanto propterea quotiens volunt, nubunt , ne moechiae et fornicationi succidere cogantur: quoniam melius est nubere quam uri (I Cor. VII, 9). Nimirum, propter continentiam incontinentia necessaria est, incendium ignibus exstinguetur. Cur ergo et crimina postmodum indulgent poenitentiae nomine, quorum remedia praestituunt multinubentiae jure? Nam et remedia vacabunt, cum crimina indulgentur; et crimina manebunt, si remedia vacabunt. Itaque utrobique de sollicitudine et negligentia ludunt, praecavendo vanissime quibus parcunt, et parcendo ineptissime quibus praecaverunt; 0983B cum aut praecavendum non sit, ubi parcitur; aut parcendum non sit, ubi praecavetur. Praecavent enim, quasi nolint admitti tale quid; indulgent autem, quasi velint admitti; quando si admitti nolint, non debeant indulgere; si indulgere velint, non debeant praecavere. Nec enim moechia et fornicatio de modicis et de maximis delictis deputabuntur, ut utrumque competat, et sollicitudo quae praecavet, et securitas quae indulget. Sed cum ea sint quae culmen criminum teneant, non capit et indulgeri quasi modica, et praecaveri quasi maxima. Nobis autem maxima aut summa sic quoque praecaventur, dum nec secundas quidem post fidem nuptias permittitur nosse, nuptialibus et dotalibus si forte tabulis a moechiae et fornicationis opere diversas. Et ideo durissime 0983C nos infamantes Paracletum disciplinae enormitate digamos foris sistimus, eumdem limitem liminis moechis quoque et fornicatoribus figimus, jejunas pacis lacrymas profusuris, nec amplius ab Ecclesia quam publicationem dedecoris relaturis.