THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
Thus, he says, you will commit the same transgression whether you corrupt a queen or your married slave. Why? Because God avenges not the persons whom you have insulted, but Himself.
You have equally defiled yourself and equally insulted God. Both acts are adultery, because both involve marriage. Even if you do not commit adultery but fornication, and even if the harlot has no husband, nevertheless God avenges it, because He avenges Himself.
By doing this you show contempt not so much for the husband as for God. This is clear from the fact that you at least hide it from the husband, but do not even think of God, who sees.
Tell me, if a king honored someone with the purple and many other dignities, and the man was commanded to live according to his rank, yet went and defiled himself with some woman, whom would he insult?
Would he insult the woman, or the king who had honored him with the gift? She too would certainly be insulted, but not as much. Therefore, I beg you, let us guard ourselves from this sin.
Just as we punish wives when, while living with us, they give themselves to others, so we ourselves shall be punished, if not by Roman laws, then by God. For this too is adultery.
Adultery happens not only when a woman bound in marriage to another commits adultery, but also when a married man commits adultery. Listen carefully to what I am saying.
Although what I say is burdensome for many, it must be said so that amendment may follow. It is not only adultery when we corrupt a married woman. It is also adultery when we ourselves, being married, commit fornication with a divorced or free woman.
What does it matter that the adulteress is not joined to a husband? You are joined. You have transgressed the law. You have wronged your own flesh.
Tell me, why do you punish your wife when she commits fornication with a free and unmarried man? You will say, “For adultery,” because even though the man who fornicated with her has no wife, she is married.
Therefore, if you also are married, your deed is likewise adultery. “Whoever divorces his wife,” it says, “except for the cause of adultery, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Mt 5:32).
If the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, how much more is the man guilty of adultery who sins with her while having his own wife? This is certainly obvious to everyone.
For you, husbands, what has been said will be sufficient. Concerning such men Christ also says, “Their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mk 9:44).
Yet it is necessary to speak to you for the sake of young men, or rather not so much for their sake as for yours. This applies not to them, but to you. I will now explain how.
The man who has not known fornication will not know adultery either. But the man defiled with harlots will soon come to this also. If not with married women, then he will commit fornication with divorced women.
Therefore, what instruction shall I give you? To cut off the very roots of evil, let those who have sons in youth, and intend to introduce them into worldly life, join them sooner with the bonds of marriage.
Since passionate desires disturb them already in youth, restrain them until the time of marriage with admonitions, threats, fear, promises, and countless other means. But when the time for marriage comes, let no one delay binding his children in marriage.
Is it not true that I speak like a matchmaker? Yet I am not ashamed to say this, because Paul also was not ashamed when he said, “Do not deprive one another” (1 Cor 7:5).
This seemed more shameful to say, yet he was not ashamed, because he looked not at the words, but at the deeds that he wished to correct by his words.
Therefore, when your son has grown up, before he enters military service or another way of life, take thought for his marriage. If he knows that you will soon bring him a bride, and that little time remains before marriage, he can patiently endure the flame of passion.
But if he learns that you neglect this, delay, and wait until he receives large incomes before marrying him, then in despair from the long waiting he will easily rush toward fornication.
But alas, here too the root of evil is love of money. Since no one cares to make his son chaste and modest, while all cling madly to gold, for whose sake no one has care for chastity, I beg you above all to care for their souls.
Indeed, if he enters marriage with a pure bride, and if he knows only her body, then love will be more ardent and the fear of God greater. The marriage will be truly honorable, joining bodies that are pure and undefiled.
The children born will be filled with every blessing. Bridegroom and bride will please one another, since both are unacquainted with the habits of other people, and they will submit to one another mutually.
But the man who from youth began to live dissolutely and became acquainted with the customs of harlots will admire his wife on the first and second evening. Then he will soon turn back to his former licentiousness.
He will seek excessive and disorderly laughter, words full of shamelessness, passionate movements, and every other abomination of which it is not proper for us even to speak.
A noble wife will not allow this, nor will she permit herself to be defiled. She married for common life and for the begetting of children, not for licentiousness and laughter.
She married to guard the house, and to teach her husband also to be honorable, not to inflame sensuality in him. But the movements of a harlot seem pleasant to you? I know it.
Scripture also speaks of this: “For the lips of a strange woman drip honey” (Prov 5:3). For this reason I say all this, so that you may not taste that honey, because it immediately turns into bile.
Scripture says the same: “But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword” (Prov 5:4). What are you saying, you ask?
Be indulgent toward me if I say something, as it were, unclean, without shame and without blushing. I do this not willingly, but I am compelled to speak such words for those who are not ashamed of such deeds.
We see much of the same in Scripture. Thus Ezekiel, reproaching Jerusalem, says much like this, and he is not ashamed. Rightly so. He did not say this from his own desire, but from good solicitude.
Although my words seem improper, their purpose is not improper, but very good for one who wishes to destroy the uncleanness of the soul. Indeed, if a shameless soul does not hear such words, it will not be frightened.
A physician who wishes to stop corruption first places his fingers into wounds. If he does not first defile his healing hands, he will not be able to heal. So it is also with me.
If I do not first defile the mouth that heals your passions, I will not be able to heal you. Or rather, here the mouth is no more defiled than the hands there.
Why? Because this is not natural uncleanness, and it does not come from our body. So also there, the uncleanness does not come from the physician’s hands, but from another’s wounds.
If there he does not refuse to place his hands into another body, shall we refuse here, where the body is our own? You are our body, though sick and unclean, yet still our own.
What then is the meaning of what I say, and why have I given such instruction? You would certainly never agree to put on a garment worn by a slave. You would loathe it because of its uncleanness.
You would rather agree to be naked than to use it. But a body unclean and foul, used not only by your slave but by countless others, you will misuse, and not loathe it?
You have become ashamed to hear this. Be ashamed of the deeds, not the words. I pass over all the rest: the corruption and uncleanness of morals, and the other servile and base things in that life.
Tell me, do you and your slave not go to one and the same woman? And would that it were only a slave. It is even an executioner.
You would not dare to take an executioner by the hand. Yet the woman who has been one body with him you embrace and kiss. Do you not tremble? Do you not fear? Are you not ashamed? Do you not blush? Are you not disturbed?
I told your fathers that you should be married sooner. Nevertheless, you too are not exempt from punishment. If there were not many other young men living chastely, both before and now, perhaps some excuse might be found for you.
But since they exist, how can you say, “We were unable to suppress the flame of desire”? Those who were able to overcome will be your accusers, because they are of the same nature as you.
Hear what Paul says: “Strive for peace with all men, and for holiness, without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14). Can this threat not frighten you?
You see that others preserve chastity all their life and live in purity. Yet you do not wish to endure until youth is past? You see that others have conquered desire ten thousand times. Yet you did not stand firm even once?
If you wish, I will state the cause. Youth is not the cause, because then all young men would be incontinent. Rather, we cast ourselves onto the fire.
Indeed, when you enter the theater and sit there, delighting your sight with the naked limbs of women, you will of course feel pleasure at first. But afterward you will kindle a strong fire within yourself.
You see women appearing as if in the image of a naked body. The spectacle and the songs express nothing but one foul love. They say that this woman loved that man, failed to gain him, and hanged herself.
They even give themselves over to criminal love for mothers. You take all this into yourself through hearing, through women, through images, and even through old men, since many of them put on masks and present women to us.
Tell me, how can you be chaste afterward, when such stories, such sights, and such sounds surround your soul? Then they give place to similar dreams, because it is natural for the soul to see in sleep the images of many things that it seeks and desires by day.
Therefore, if there you see shameful deeds and hear words still more shameful, and if you receive wounds but take no remedies, how indeed will the corruption not increase?
How will the illness not grow stronger, and in much greater measure than happens in our bodies? The will, if only we wish, accepts correction more easily than the body.
There, medicines, physicians, and time are needed. Here, it is enough to wish, in order to be either good or evil. Therefore the illness has grown stronger in you.
If we gather only what harms us, and do not think at all about what benefits us, how can we be healthy? For this reason Paul said, “as the Gentiles who do not know God.”
If the Gentiles, who do not know God, are often chaste, what shame and fear should seize us? We are worse than they, and therefore we should be ashamed.
It is easy to conduct life in chastity if we wish and if we keep away from what harms us. But if we do not wish, then even fornication is not easy to avoid.
What is easier than walking to the marketplace? Yet because of great softness, even this has become difficult, not only for women but even for men.
What is easier than sleep? Yet we have made this difficult also. Many rich men turn from side to side all night, because they lie down to sleep without waiting until the need for sleep appears.
In general, nothing is difficult when we wish, just as nothing is easy when we do not wish. We have power over everything. Therefore Scripture says, “If you are willing and obedient.”
And again, “But if you refuse and rebel” (Isa 1:19-20). Thus everything depends on willing or not willing, and according to this we deserve punishment or praise.
May we be among those who have deserved praise, and may we be counted worthy to receive the promised blessings by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ.