1 Corinthians 6:12–20

By "all things" Paul presumably means those things which are contained in the natural law and which were also lawful for his fellow apostles. It would not refer to the law of Moses, because Moses forbade many things owing to the hardness of heart of an unbelieving and stiff-necked people.

A man is instructed by the gift of counsel to discern what is lawful, what is fitting, and what is expedient according to the judgment of right reason. First a man ought to consider whether it is lawful, whether it is fitting: many things are lawful that are not fitting. Afterward he ought to consider whether it is expedient, because the Apostle says: 'All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient.' Once this threefold consideration has been attained, thoughts are instructed, and wisdom dwells in the counsel of man.

But, however you approach it, the great thing is to bring him into the state in which the denial of any one indulgence--it matters not which, champagne or tea, sole colbert or cigarettes--"puts him out", for then his charity, justice, and obedience are all at your mercy.

"Wherefore," he says, "ye are justified in the name of the Lord." Ye are made, so to speak, by Him to be righteous as He is, and are blended as far as possible with the Holy Spirit. For "are not all things lawful to me? yet I will not be brought under the power of any," so as to do, or think, or speak aught contrary to the Gospel. "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats, which God shall destroy," -that is, such as think and live as if they were made for eating, and do not eat that they may live as a consequence, and apply to knowledge as the primary end.

If it is lawful to live any sort of life one likes, obviously one may live in continence; or if any kind of life has no dangers for the elect, obviously one of virtue and self-control is far less dangerous. If the "lord of the sabbath" has been given the right to pass uncorrected if he lives an immoral life, a fortiori there will be no correction for him who behaves decently. "All things are lawful, but all things are not expedient," says the apostle. If all things are lawful, obviously this includes self-control. Therefore if one who uses his power to live a virtuous life receives praise, then much more worthy of reverence and honour is he who has given us this free and sovereign power and has allowed us to live as we choose, not allowing us to become enslaved and subjected to necessity by our acts of choice and rejection. But if both can have no anxiety, he who chooses incontinence and he who chooses abstinence, yet the honour is not equal. He who indulges his pleasures gratifies his body; but he who is controlled liberates from its passions his soul which is master of the body.

No doubt, if any one is unwilling to follow the Gospel itself, it is in his power [to reject it], but it is not expedient. For it is in man's power to disobey God, and to forfeit what is good; but [such conduct] brings no small amount of injury and mischief. And on this account Paul says, "All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient;" referring both to the liberty of man, in which respect "all things are lawful," God exercising no compulsion in regard to him; and [by the expression] "not expedient" pointing out that we "should not use our liberty as a cloak of maliciousness, for this is not expedient. And again he says, "Speak ye every man truth with his neighbour." And, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor scurrility, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks." And, "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk honestly as children of the light, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in anger and jealousy. And such were some of you; but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified in the name of our Lord." If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things, and to abstain from others? But because man is possessed of free will from the beginning, and God is possessed of free will, in whose likeness man was created, advice is always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing is done by means of obedience to God.

Here he glances at the gluttons. For since he intends to assail the fornicator again, and fornication arises from luxuriousness and want of moderation, he strongly chastises this passion. It cannot be that he speaks thus with regard to things forbidden, such not being "lawful:" but of things which seem to be indifferent. To illustrate my meaning: "It is lawful," he says, "to eat and to drink; but it is not expedient with excess." And so that marvellous and unexpected turn of his, which he is often wont to adopt; bringing his argument clear round to its contrary, this he manages to introduce here also; and he signifies that to do what is in one's power not only is not expedient, but even is not a part of power, but of slavery.

And first, he dissuades them on the ground of the inexpediency of the thing, saying, "they are not expedient:" in the next place, on that of its contrariety to itself, saying, "I will not be brought under the power of any." This is his meaning: "You are at liberty to eat," says he; "well then, remain in liberty, and take heed that you do not become a slave to this appetite: for he who uses it properly, he is master of it; but he that exceeds the proper measure is no longer its master but its slave, since gluttony reigns paramount within him." Do you perceive how, where the man thought he had authority Paul points out that he is under authority? For this is his custom, as I was saying before, to give all objections a turn the contrary way. It is just this which he has done here. For mark; each of them was saying, "I have power to live luxuriously." He replies, "In doing so, thou art not so much acting as one who had power over a thing, but rather as being thyself subject to some such power. For thou hast not power even over thine own belly, so long as thou art dissolute, but it hath power over thee." And the same we may say both of riches and of other things.

And that a free man is not fettered by a lust for anything he sheweth by his freedom, and in that he hath the power and doth not make use thereof, he doubleth readily the freedom thereof, and he preserveth it from being dissipated, even as Paul writeth concerning this freedom, saying, "I have power to do everything, but not everything edifieth." And that thou mayest learn that it is thus with all other things, and especially in the matter of eating and not eating, he maketh known the power of his freedom and saith immediately after these words, "Meats of the belly, and the belly of meats, but God will bring both of them to nought."

Now that we are no longer under the law, we have the freedom to make choices, but we need to realize that some choices are right and others wrong.

Since he had spoken before about the fornicator and will soon speak about him again, he introduces a discussion about gluttony as well: for the passion of fornication arises chiefly from gluttony. So he says: it is permitted for me to eat and drink, but it is harmful for me to partake of food and drink beyond measure.

I, he says, am master over food and drink; but if I use them immoderately, from a master I will become their slave. For whoever uses them as one ought is master over them; on the contrary, whoever falls into excess is no longer a master but their slave, because in that case overindulgence becomes his tyrant. Do you see how the one who considered himself a ruler, the apostle showed to be ruled? Look: each of the Corinthians was saying, "it is lawful for me to give myself over to pleasures"; but the apostle says: you give yourself over to them not because you have power over them, but because you yourself are subject to their power. For as long as you remain intemperate, it is not you who have power over the belly, but the belly over you.

Then when he says, all things are lawful, he clarifies what he had said about forbidding lawsuits, and shows in what sense he rejects them, namely, he does not reject them as altogether unlawful, but as not expedient and as harmful. In regard to this he does two things: first, he states his proposition; secondly, he assigns a reason (v. 13).

First, he states that what he rejects is lawful but not expedient, saying, All things are lawful for me. Now those things are lawful which a man is not forbidden to do. But prohibitions are of two kinds: one is by force and the other by precept. According to this, some have understood that something is lawful from which they are not prohibited by any necessitating force; because man's decision is naturally free of force, they understand the Apostle to mean it in that sense when he said: All things are lawful to me, namely, that all things are subject to man's free choice, be they good or evil, according to what is said in Sir (15:17): "Before a man is life and death; which he chooses will be given to him." But this way of speaking is alien to sacred scripture, in which it says that things forbidden by the divine law are not lawful, as in Matt (14:4): "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." Consequently, what the Apostle says here, that all things are lawful for me, must not be understood absolutely but in this sense: all things are lawful to me which are not forbidden by the divine law.

This can be referred to three things: first, to what he had said about lawsuits, namely, that it is lawful for anyone to obtain his property through lawsuits, since it is not forbidden by divine law. Secondly, it can be referred to what he will say below (8:8) about indiscriminate use of food, so that the sense would be: it is lawful for me to eat all foods according to Titus (1:15): "To the clean all things are clean." Thirdly, it can be referred to what he will say below (9:4) about taking food and drink, so that the sense is this: all things are lawful for me, namely, to take what is necessary for life, just as it is for my co-apostles.

But he adds, not all things are expedient. That is said to be expedient, which is without a hindrance to attaining an end. Now it happens that something does not entirely exclude the end, but it offers some hindrance, as marriage does not exclude a person from the kingdom of God, but it offers a hindrance, namely, because as it says below (7:34): "The married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband." So fornication is neither lawful nor expedient, because it totally excludes one from the end, which is eternal life; but marriage is lawful but not expedient. Therefore, according to this mode, to get back one's own in a lawsuit or to use all foods without distinction or to take one's food from those to whom he preaches are all lawful, because they are not against justice or forbidden by any law; yet it is not expedient, either because peace towards one's neighbor is endangered, or scandal of the weak is produced, or an occasion for reviling is offered: "Not everything is good for everyone" (Sir 37:28).

In another way it can be understood not absolutely but conditionally, so that the sense is this: I have said that neither idolaters nor fornicators, etc. shall possess the kingdom of God. Therefore they are not lawful, because they exclude the end; but if all things were licit for me, not all are expedient, because they pose a hindrance to eternal life. Hence in the person of the wicked it says in Wis (5:7): "We took our fill of the power of lawlessness and destruction, and we journeyed through trackless deserts."

Secondly, he shows that what he rejected above is harmful, saying: All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by any, namely, man. For one who uses something not expedient, whether it be lawful or unlawful, is somehow put under the power of that man or thing. Of a thing, indeed, because one who loves a thing too much is made its slave, as it says in Rom (16:18): "Such persons do not serve the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites." But of a man, because as long as one does something not expedient, he is in thrall to the judgment of others; and particularly one who tries to get back his own in a lawsuit is under the power of the judge: "Why should my liberty be determined by another man's conscience" (1 Cor 10:29).

The body, being dedicated to God, will be rewarded with a spiritual reward for the merit of its ruler, which is the rational soul.

"Desire not," says the Scripture, "rich men's dainties;" for they belong to a false and base life. They partake of luxurious dishes, which a little after go to the dunghill. But we who seek the heavenly bread must rule the belly, which is beneath heaven, and much more the things which are agreeable to it, which "God shall destroy," says the apostle, justly execrating gluttonous desires. For "meats are for the belly," for on them depends this truly carnal and destructive life...

With milk, then, the Lord's nutriment, we are nursed directly we are born; and as soon as we are regenerated, we are honoured by receiving the good news of the hope of rest, even the Jerusalem above, in which it is written that milk and honey fall in showers, receiving through what is material the pledge of the sacred food. "For meats are done away with," as the apostle himself says; but this nourishment on milk leads to the heavens, rearing up citizens of heaven, and members of the angelic choirs.

Wherefore, lest either gluttonous appetite throw the one sort off their guard, or the afflicted flesh trip up the other by elation, let the former hear this from the mouth of the Truth, "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged in surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this world." And in the same place there is added a profitable fear; "And so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth." Let the latter hear, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." Let the former hear, "Meat for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them." And again, "Not in rioting and drunkenness." And again, "Meat commendeth us not to God." Let the latter hear, "To the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure." Let the former hear, "Whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their own confusion." Let the latter hear, "Some shall depart from the faith;" and a little after, "Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." Let those hear, "It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth." Let these hear, "Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." Thus both the former may learn not to desire inordinately the food of the flesh, and the latter not dare to condemn the creature of God, which they lust not after.

Whence also he says, that this handiwork is "the temple of God," thus declaring: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man, therefore, will defile the temple of God, him will God destroy: for the temple of God is holy, which [temple] ye are." Here he manifestly declares the body to be the temple in which the Spirit dwells. As also the Lord speaks in reference to Himself, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. He spake this, however," it is said, "of the temple of His body." And not only does he (the apostle) acknowledge our bodies to be a temple, but even the temple of Christ, saying thus to the Corinthians, "Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot?" He speaks these things, not in reference to some other spiritual man; for a being of such a nature could have nothing to do with an harlot: but he declares "our body," that is, the flesh which continues in sanctity and purity, to be "the members of Christ;" but that when it becomes one with an harlot, it becomes the members of an harlot. And for this reason he said, "If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy." How then is it not the utmost blasphemy to allege, that the temple of God, in which the Spirit of the Father dwells, and the members of Christ, do not partake of salvation, but are reduced to perdition? Also, that our bodies are raised not from their own substance, but by the power of God, he says to the Corinthians, "Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. But God hath both raised up the Lord, and shall raise us up by His own power."

"Meats for the belly." By "the belly" here he means not the stomach, but the stomach's voraciousness. As when he says, "Whose God is their belly:" not speaking about that part of the body, but about greediness. To prove that so it is, hear what follows: "And the belly for meats; but the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord." And yet "the belly" also is of "the body." But he puts down two pairs of things, "meats" and gluttony, (which he terms "the belly;") "Christ," and "the body."

What then is the meaning of, "Meats for the belly?" "Meats," he says, are on good terms with gluttony, and it with them. It cannot therefore lead us unto Christ, but drags towards these. For it is a strong and brutal passion, and makes us slaves, and puts us upon ministering to the belly. Why then art thou excited and gaping after food, O man? For the end of that service is this, and nothing further shall be seen of it: but as one was waiting on some mistress, it abides keeping up this slavery, and advances no further, and has no other employment but this same fruitless one. And the two are connected together and destroyed together; "the belly" with "the meats," and "the meats" with "the belly;" winding out a sort of interminable course; just as from a corrupt body worms may be produced, and again by worms the body consumed; or as it were a wave swoln high and breaking, and having no further effect. But these things he says not concerning food and the body, but it is the passion of greediness and excess in eatables which he is censuring: and what follows shews it. For he proceeds:

"But God shall bring to nought both it and them:" speaking not of the stomach, but of immoderate desire: not of food but of high feeding. For with the former he is not angry, but even lays down rules about them, saying, "Having food and covering we shall be therewith content." However, thus he stigmatizes the whole thing; its amendment (after advice given) being left by him to prayer.

But some say that the words are a prophecy, declaring the state which shall be in the life to come, and that there is no eating or drinking there. Now if that which is moderate shall have an end, much more ought we to abstain from excess.

Then lest any one should suppose that the body is the object of his censure, and suspect that from a part he is blaming the whole, and say that the nature of the body was the cause of gluttony or of fornication, hear what follows. "I blame not," he says, "the nature of the body, but the immoderate license of the mind." And therefore he subjoins, "Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord;" for it was not formed for this purpose, to live riotously and commit fornication, as neither was the belly to be greedy; but that it might follow Christ as a Head, and that the Lord might be set over the body. Let us be overcome with shame, let us be horror-struck, that after we have been counted worthy of such great honor as to become members of Him that sitteth on high, we defile ourselves with so great evils.

One who worships God through food is almost like one who has God for his belly.

And again, when the Apostle Paul is read, and he heareth from him, "Everything which was created by God is holy, and nothing is to be rejected if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer;" or another verse, "The belly for meats, and meats for the belly;" or that also which he spake, "Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth." And in the other things like unto these which are written in the doctrine of Paul, the fool rejoiceth, and receiveth them gladly, without understanding the reason of the words.

And the glutton is not pleased to hear the other things which have been written by Paul upon fortitude and asceticism, either when he recounteth his numerous fastings, or when he crieth out to his disciples, saying, "Ye are dead unto the world," or when he writeth, "It is good for a man not to eat flesh, and not to drink wine," or his exhortation, "Through many tribulations it is meet for a man to enter into the kingdom of God," or his saying, "God shall bring both the belly and the food to nought;" and the reading of these and such like passages the glutton considereth unnecessary, and he is not pleased even to hear them.

Let us say unto each other that which hath been said unto us by the Apostle, "The belly for meats, and meats for the belly, but God will bring them both to nought." The body then is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, to Whom be glory from us all for ever.

And that thou mayest learn that it is thus with all other things, and especially in the matter of eating and not eating, he maketh known the power of his freedom and saith immediately after these words, "Meats of the belly, and the belly of meats, but God will bring both of them to nought." Preserve then, O disciple, the habit of abstinence, that thou mayest also arrive at the power of freedom, and wean thyself, and eat not, that thou mayest draw nigh unto the state of eating without perceiving it; abstain from food by the power of thy soul, in order that the lusts which are mingled in thy members may be destroyed.

But why is Christ our passover, if the passover be not a type of Christ, in the similitude of the blood which saves, and of the Lamb, which is Christ? Why does (the apostle) clothe us and Christ with symbols of the Creator's solemn rites, unless they had relation to ourselves? When, again, he warns us against fornication, he reveals the resurrection of the flesh. "The body," says he, "is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body," just as the temple is for God, and God for the temple.

By "belly" he means gluttony, not a member of our body; and by "food" he means the immoderate use of food. So the meaning of the words is this: the immoderate use of food is in friendship and kinship with gluttony, and vice versa. Neither one can bring us to Christ; on the contrary, they mutually pass those devoted to them from one to the other — immoderation to gluttony, and gluttony to immoderation.

Not the belly, but gluttony, and not food, but immoderation in food. In the word "will destroy" some see a prediction about the state of the future age, that is, that there will be no need there for either food or drink. And if even the moderate use of food will have no place there, then all the more does He abolish immoderation and gluttony. Having said that together with the abolition of food the belly too will be abolished, he expressed the thought that together with satiation the desire for more ceases. According to others, however, he sealed his exhortation with a prayer that immoderation and gluttony would be abolished, that is, would cease.

From these words it is evident that the apostle speaks about gluttony in connection with his discourse on fornication. For he should have said: the body is not for meats nor for the belly. But he did not say this, but what? "Not for fornication," showing what is the consequence of bodily pleasures, namely fornication. And the meaning of his words is this: the body, he says, was not created to be drowned in pleasures and to fall into fornication, but so that it might obey Christ as its head, and the Lord would govern it as the head.

Then when he says, Food is meant for the stomach, he assigns a reason for what he has said. First, why all things are lawful, saying, Food is meant for the stomach, in order, namely that after the stomach has done its work, it may nourish the entire body; and the stomach for food, i.e., it serves to receive food and work on it. Therefore, since by God's ordinance the stomach is desirous of receiving food, and food was made to be put in the stomach: "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food" (Gen 1:29), it is not unlawful for a man to get property back, or a preacher to get wages for necessary food, or even that a man eat all foods without distinction.

Secondly, when he says, and God will destroy both, he gives the reason why all things are not expedient. For it is not expedient that a person suffer a loss in that which is never corrupted, namely, the heavenly kingdom, for the sake of something corrupted; and this happens in regard to food and stomach. After this life the use of food and of the stomach will cease, because the bodies of those who rise will be conserved without food by God's power. And that is what he says: God will destroy, i.e. will make cease this, namely, the stomach, not as to its essence but as to its effect which it has now, and these, namely, foods, so far as they pertain to man's use, because in the resurrection men will be as the angels in heaven, as it says in Matt (22:30).

After rebuking the Corinthians about lawsuits, the Apostle now returns to reprehending the sin of fornication, which he mentioned above in (5:11) and in the judgment of which the Corinthians had been negligent. He condemns fornication for four reasons: the first of which is taken from God's ordinance; secondly, from one's union with Christ (v. 16); thirdly, from bodily defilement (v. 18); fourthly, from the dignity of grace (v. 19). In regard to the first he does two things: first, he presents God's ordinance; secondly, the end of the ordinance (v. 14).

In regard to the first it should be noted that some take their argument for lascivious conduct from God's ordinance. For those who fornicate use their body for a use established by God. But he excludes this, saying that food is ordained to the stomach and the stomach to food, but man's body is not meant for fornication but for the Lord, i.e., it had been ordained to this, namely, that it be for the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord for the body, i.e., Jesus Christ was given to man in order that human bodies be conformed to His glory, as it says in Phil (3:21): "He will change our lowly body to be like His glorious body."

But against this seems to be the fact that just as the stomach is ordained to the use of food, so certain members of the human body are ordained by God to be used for generation, i.e., the members by which fornication is performed. But attention must be paid to the difference between the two. First, the Apostle spoke above about one member of the body, namely, the stomach, but here he is speaking about the entire body, which is not ordained to fornication any more than it is ordained to eating food; rather, food is used for the benefit of the body and the body exists for the sake of the soul, from which it receives life according to its condition. And because all things are ordered to God as to an end, the body should be subjected to the Lord and dedicated to Him. And because he spoke above about the eating of food in general terms without disorder, but fornication is a disordered use of the member used in fornication. Hence, the members exist not for fornication, but for generation ordained by reason, which the members of the body should serve, just as even the stomach is not for gluttony and drunkenness, but for the proper use of food.

But if in Holy Scripture discipline is frequently and everywhere prescribed, and the whole foundation of religion and of faith proceeds from obedience and fear; what is more fitting for us urgently to desire, what more to wish for and to hold fast, than to stand with roots strongly fixed, and with our houses based with solid mass upon the rock unshaken by the storms and whirlwinds of the world, so that we may come by the divine precepts to the rewards of God? considering as well as knowing that our members, when purged from all the filth of the old contagion by the sanctification of the layer of life, are God's temples, and must not be violated nor polluted, since he who does violence to them is himself injured. We are the worshippers and priests of those temples; let us obey Him whose we have already begun to be. Paul tells us in his epistles, in which he has formed us to a course of living by divine teaching, "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a great price; glorify and bear God in your body." Let us glorify and bear God in a pure and chaste body, and with a more complete obedience; and since we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, let us obey and give furtherance to the empire of our Redeemer by all the obedience of service, that nothing impure or profane may be brought into the temple of God, lost He should be offended, and forsake the temple which He inhabits. The words of the Lord giving health and teaching, as well curing as warning, are: "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." He gives the course of life, He gives the law of innocency after He has conferred health, nor suffers the man afterwards to wander with free and unchecked reins, but more severely threatens him who is again enslaved by those same things of which he had been healed, because it is doubtless a smaller fault to have sinned before, while as yet you had not known God's discipline; but there is no further pardon for sinning after you have begun to know God. And, indeed, let as well men as women, as well boys as girls; let each sex and every age observe this, and take care in this respect, according to the religion and faith which they owe to God, that what is received holy and pure from the condescension of the Lord be preserved with a no less anxious fear.

In the same manner, therefore, as Christ did rise in the substance of flesh, and pointed out to His disciples the mark of the nails and the opening in His side (now these are the tokens of that flesh which rose from the dead), so "shall He also," it is said, "raise us up by His own power." And again to the Romans he says, "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." What, then, are mortal bodies? Can they be souls? Nay, for souls are incorporeal when put in comparison with mortal bodies; for God "breathed into the face of man the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Now the breath of life is an incorporeal thing. And certainly they cannot maintain that the very breath of life is mortal. Therefore David says, "My soul also shall live to Him," just as if its substance were immortal. Neither, on the other hand, can they say that the spirit is the mortal body. What therefore is there left to which we may apply the term "mortal body," unless it be the thing that was moulded, that is, the flesh, of which it is also said that God will vivify it? For this it is which dies and is decomposed, but not the soul or the spirit. For to die is to lose vital power, and to become henceforth breathless, inanimate, and devoid of motion, and to melt away into those [component parts] from which also it derived the commencement of [its] substance. But this event happens neither to the soul, for it is the breath of life; nor to the spirit, for the spirit is simple and not composite, so that it cannot be decomposed, and is itself the life of those who receive it. We must therefore conclude that it is in reference to the flesh that death is mentioned; which [flesh], after the soul's departure, becomes breathless and inanimate, and is decomposed gradually into the earth from which it was taken. This, then, is what is mortal. And it is this of which he also says, "He shall also quicken your mortal bodies."

Having now sufficiently condemned the glutton, he uses also the hope of things to come to divert us from this wickedness: saying, "And God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us also through His power."

Do you perceive again his Apostolical wisdom? For he is always establishing the credibility of the Resurrection from Christ, and especially now. For if our body be a member of Christ, and Christ be risen, the body also shall surely follow the Head.

"Through his power." For since he had asserted a thing disbelieved and not to be apprehended by reasonings, he hath left entirely to His incomprehensible power the circumstances of Christ's own Resurrection, producing this too as no small demonstration against them. And concerning the Resurrection of Christ he did not insert this: for he did not say, "And God shall also raise up the Lord;"-for the thing was past and gone;-but how? "And God both raised up the Lord;" nor was there need of any proof. But concerning our resurrection, since it has not yet come to pass, he spoke not thus, but how? "And will raise up us also through His power:" by the reliance to be placed on the power of the Worker, he stops the mouths of the gainsayers.

Further: if he ascribe unto the Father the Resurrection of Christ, let not this at all disturb thee. For not as though Christ were powerless, hath he put this down, for He it is Himself who saith, "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up:" and again, "I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again." And Luke also in the Acts says, "To whom also He shewed Himself alive." Wherefore then does Paul so speak? Because both the acts of the Son are imputed unto the Father, and the Father's unto the Son: For He saith, "Whatsoever things He doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner."

And very opportunely he here made mention of the Resurrection, keeping down by those hopes the tyranny of gluttonous desire; and all but saying, Thou hast eaten, hast drunk to excess: and what is the result? Nothing, save only destruction. Thou hast been conjoined unto Christ; and what is the result? A great and marvellous thing: the future Resurrection, that glorious one, and transcending all utterance!

Paul did not write this because of Christ's resurrection, which had already taken place, but because of ours, so that we might believe and silence our opponents.

A temple will therefore pass away with its god, and its god with the temple. You see, then, how that "He who raised up the Lord will also raise us up." In the body will He raise us, because the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

"Moreover, God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us through His own power; " on account, to wit, of the union of our body with Him.

Do not be troubled upon hearing that God raised the Lord; for the apostle speaks thus, condescending to them as to infants. And since concerning the Father, as the source, all unanimously held the highest conceptions, the apostle attributes the resurrection to the Father and declares that He will raise us also. For just as He raised our head, I mean Christ, so He will raise the remaining members of the body, that is, us. Furthermore, in confirmation of his words he added: "by His power," as if saying: do not doubt what I say, for the power of God, which accomplishes great things, will fulfill this also. And that he attributes the resurrection of Christ to the Father as the cause is evident from what the Lord said concerning Himself: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). And again it is written of Him that He presented Himself alive (Acts 1:3). Thus, although He Himself also raised Himself, yet this deed is ascribed to the Father as the cause.

Then when he says, and God raised the Lord, he indicates the end of the above-mentioned ordination. First, he indicates what God had done in regard to the Lord, saying: And God raised the Lord, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, from the dead, from whom Christ Himself petitions in Ps 41 (v. 10): "Do thou, O Lord, be gracious to me and raise me up." But God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; hence Christ Himself, who is the Son of God, also raised Himself and arose by His own power, as it says in Ps 3 (v. 5): "I will lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me," and in 2 Cor (13:4): "He was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God." Secondly, he indicates what he will do in regard to us saying: God will also raise us up by his power, by which He also raised up Christ, as it says in Rom (8:11): "He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies."

It should be noted that when speaking above about food and stomach, which pertain to the use of animal life, he said that they would be destroyed by God; but now, speaking of the body and of the Lord, he makes mention of the resurrection, because when animal life ceases, the nature of the body will be transformed into something better. Hence it is clear that the body should not be used for fornication, which impedes future incorruption according to Gal (6:8): "He who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption."

To approach Christ is through faith, or through the Sacrament of faith; and the faith of Christ is the same in past, present, and future: therefore the ground of influencing is posited in Christ with respect to all, past as well as present as well as future, who believe in Christ and are reborn in Christ, who through faith are joined to Christ and through inflowing grace become members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit, and thereby children of God the Father, connected to one another through the indivisible bond of charity. Which just as it is not divided by distance of places, so neither is it separated by length of times; and thereby all the just, wherever they may be and whenever they may have been, constitute one mystical body of Christ, receiving sense and motion from the one influencing head, according to the fontal, radical, and original fullness of all grace dwelling in Christ as in a fountain.

Those, therefore, who are consecrated to God must never live mortally. "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." Remember the four and twenty thousand that were rejected for fornication.

That marriage is not to be contracted with Gentiles. In Tobias: "Take a wife from the seed of thy parents, and take not a strange woman who is not of the tribe of thy parents."699 Also in Genesis, Abraham sends his servant to take from his seed Rebecca, for his son Isaac. Also in Esdras, it was not sufficient for God when the Jews were laid waste, unless they forsook their foreign wives, with the children also whom they had begotten of them. Also in the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: "The woman is bound so long as her husband liveth; but if he die, she is freed to marry whom she will, only in the Lord. But she will be happier if she abide thus."700 And again: "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? Far be it from me. Or know ye not that he who is joined together with an harlot is one body? for two shall be in one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit."701 Also in the second to the Corinthians: "Be not joined together with unbelievers. For what participation is there between righteousness and unrighteousness? or what communication hath light with darkness? "702 Also concerning Solomon in the third book of Kings: "And foreign wives turned away his heart after their gods."703

Christ gave this judgment when, being inquired of, He said that a wife must not be put away, save for the cause of adultery; such honour did He put upon chastity. Hence arose the decree: "Ye shall not suffer adulteresses to live."8 Hence the apostle says: "This is the will of God, that ye abstain from fornication."9 Hence also he says the same thing: "That the members of Christ must not be joined with the members of an harlot."10 Hence the man is delivered over unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, who, treading under foot the law of chastity, practises the vices of the flesh. Hence with reason adulterers do not attain the kingdom of heaven. Hence it is that every sin is without the body, but that the adulterer alone sins against his own body. Hence other authoritative utterances of the instructor, all of which it is not necessary at this time to collect, especially among you, who for the most part know and do them; and you cannot find cause for complaint concerning these things, even though they are not described. For the adulterer has not an excuse, nor could he have, because he might take a wife.

Having passed on from the fornicator to the covetous person, he comes back to the former from the latter, no longer henceforth discoursing with him but with the others who had not committed fornication. And in the act of securing them lest they fall into the same sins, he assails him again. For he that has committed sin, though you direct your words to another, is stung even in that way; his conscience being thoroughly awakened and scourging him.

Now the fear of punishment indeed was enough to keep them in chastity. But seeing that he does not wish by fear alone to set these matters right, he uses both threatenings and reasons.

Now upon that other occasion, having stated the sin, and prescribed the punishment, and pointed out the harm which intercourse with the fornicator brought upon all, he left off, and passed to the subject of covetousness: and having threatened the covetous and all the rest whom he mentioned with expulsion from the kingdom, he so concluded his discourse. But here he takes in hand the work of admonition in a yet more terrific manner. For as he that only punishes a sin and does nothing to point out its most extreme lawlessness, produces no such great effect by his chastisement: so again, he who only abashes and fails to terrify by his mode of punishing, does not very keenly hit men of hardened minds. Wherefore Paul does both: here he abashes, saying, "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" there again he terrifies, saying, "Know ye not that the covetous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?"

And in regard to the fornicator, he again uses this order of discourse. For having terrified him by what he had said before; first cutting him off and delivering him to Satan, and then reminding him of that day which is coming; he abashes him again by saying, "Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ?" thenceforth speaking as to children of noble birth. For whereas he had said, "Now the body is for the Lord," he indicates it more plainly now. And in another place as well he does this same thing, saying, "Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof." And the same figure he often employs, not with the same aim, but at one time to shew His love, and at another to increase their fear. But here he has employed it to startle and fill them with alarm. "Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? God forbid." Nothing can be apter to strike horror than this expression. He said not, "Shall I take the members of Christ, and join them on to a harlot?" but what? "make them members of a harlot;" which surely would strike more keenly.

Other sins like anger and greed come from the soul, but fornication has its roots in the flesh. Paul makes special mention of it here because it was the problem which he had to deal with at the time. Fornication is not self-evidently the worst sin of all.

If, however, you deny that divorce is in any way permitted by Christ, how is it that you on your side destroy marriage, not uniting man and woman, nor admitting to the sacrament of baptism and of the eucharist those who have been united in marriage anywhere else, unless they should agree together to repudiate the fruit of their marriage, and so the very Creator Himself? Well, then, what is a husband to do in your sect, if his wife commit adultery? Shall he keep her? But your own apostle, you know, does not permit "the members of Christ to be joined to a harlot." Divorce, therefore, when justly deserved, has even in Christ a defender.

In the body will He raise us, because the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And suitably does he add the question: "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? " What has the heretic to say? That these members of Christ will not rise again, for they are no longer our own? "For," he says, "ye are bought with a price.

However, let me meanwhile add that in the same passage Paul "carries about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus; " he also forbids our body to be profaned, as being "the temple of God; " he makes our bodies "the members of Christ; " and he exhorts us to exalt and "glorify God in our body.

The admission of a strange man (to your couch) less violates "the temple of God," less commingles "the members of Christ" with the members of an adulteress. So far as I know, "we are not our own, but bought with a price; " and what kind of price? The blood of God.

"Taking away the members of Christ, shall I make (them) members of an harlot? Know ye not, that whoever is agglutinated to an harlot is made one body? (for the two shall be (made) into one flesh): but whoever is agglutinated to the Lord is one spirit? Flee fornication." If revocable by pardon, in what sense am I to flee it, to turn adulterer anew? I shall gain nothing if I do flee it: I shall be "one body," to which by communion I shall be agglutinated.

You are all members of Christ because you have been united to him by being born again of the Spirit. You have the hope that you will rise again, just as he rose.

Again he returns to the previously proposed exhortation concerning fornication. Meanwhile, he arms his discourse with great terrors.

He did not say: to unite with a harlot, but, what is more terrible, "to make them members of a harlot." Indeed, who would not be horrified, hearing these words, that is, to tear away the members from Christ and make them members of a harlot?

The cited passage shows what was stated, that is, in what manner the members of Christ become members of a harlot. Through intercourse, he says, a man becomes one with a harlot; therefore his members, which were members of Christ, become members of a harlot.

Then when he says, Do you not know, he presents a second reason, which is taken from the human body's affinity to Christ, namely: the fornicating man's members are the prostitute's members, but a man's members are Christ's members. Therefore, by fornicating, Christ's members become the prostitute's members, which is unbecoming. In regard to this he does four things: first, he presents the major, saying: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? As if to say: you should not be unaware of this, because all of you reborn in Christ have become members of Christ, as it says below (12:27): "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it," and this not only as to souls justified by him but also as to bodies, which will be raised up by him, as has been stated.

Secondly, he presents the conclusion, saying: Shall I take the members of Christ, i.e., remove them from the service of Christ to whom they should be dedicated, as it says in Rom (6:13): "Yield your members to God as instruments of righteousness", and make them be members of a prostitute by fornicating? Never! For this is a horrible sacrilege. Hence it says in Mal (2:11): "Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord which he loves and has married the daughter of a foreign god."

For, as it is said, the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her. Sexual immorality joins them together as one, just as in nature, two become one. As it is written, 'They shall become one flesh' (Genesis 2:24). It is clear that because the woman is from the man, both are one flesh.

Now comes the joke. The Enemy described a married couple as "one flesh". He did not say "a happily married couple" or "a couple who married because they were in love", but you can make the humans ignore that. You can also make them forget that the man they call Paul did not confine it to married couples. Mere copulation, for him, makes "one flesh". You can thus get the humans to accept as rhetorical eulogies of "being in love" what were in fact plain descriptions of the real significance of sexual intercourse. The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, there, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.

Then he makes out how the fornicator becomes this, saying thus, "Know ye not that he that is joined unto a harlot is one body?" How is this evident? "For the twain, saith He, shall become one."

For the conjunction suffers the two no longer to be two, but makes them both one.

A man guilty of fornication and the impurity which comes from it insults his marriage and his wife. He sins against his own body and consequently against his wife, because the two are one flesh.

Thirdly he presents the minor, saying: Do you not know that he who joins his body to a prostitute, namely, by fornicating, becomes one body with her? Namely, by an unclean union. To prove this he appeals to the authority of Genesis, saying, For it is written, namely in Gen (2:24), the two, namely man and woman, become one flesh, i.e., by the carnal union they are made one flesh, and so the members of one become the other's members. For these are Adam's words about husband and wife, which the Apostle here relates to fornication, because there is no specific difference between the two acts. But it should be noted that, as the Philosopher says in the book, On the Generation of Animals, the active principle of generation is in the male, and the passive in the female. And just as in a plant whose life is ordained chiefly to generation, there is always one body in which both principles are united, so in animals, which are ordained to higher acts of life, there is not always one body with these two principles, but one is made from two in the act of generation. In the case of humans, it is not only the man's body, because as it says below (7:14): "The husband does not have rule over his own body, but the wife has."

The Spirit of God is shared between God and human beings when we are united to the Lord.

Living in the Spirit of the Son, let such a soul recognize herself as a daughter of the Father, a bride or even a sister of the Son, for you will find that the soul who enjoys this privilege is called by either of these names. Nor will it cost me much to prove it, the proof is ready to hand. They are the names by which the Bridegroom addresses her: "I come into my garden, my sister, my bride." She is his sister because they have the one Father; his bride because joined in the one Spirit. For if marriage according to the flesh constitutes two in one body, why should not a spiritual union be even more efficacious in joining two in one spirit? And hence anyone who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

You see that even majesty yields to love? So it is, brothers; love looks up to no one, but neither does it look down on anyone. It regards all equally, who love one another perfectly, and in itself it tempers together the lofty and the lowly; not only making them equals, but one. Perhaps you still think that God is excepted from this rule of love; but "he who clings to God is one spirit" (1 Cor 6:17). Why do you marvel at this? He himself was made as one of us. I have said too little: not as one, but one. It is a small thing to be equal to men: he is man. Thence he claims our land for himself, but as a homeland, not as a possession. Why should he not claim it? Thence comes his bride, thence the substance of his body; thence the Bridegroom himself; thence "two in one flesh." If one flesh, why not also one homeland?

When a worthy admission has come about together with a holy perception, then the soul is rapt in God, that is, in the beloved. "My Lover belongs to me and I to Him; He browses among the lilies," for the soul already feels the union and is made one spirit with God: "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." And this is the highest thing in the soul: it makes it abide in heaven.

"But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."

For the conjunction suffers the two no longer to be two, but makes them both one.

Now mark again, how he proceeds by means of the bare terms, conducting his accusation in the names of the harlot and of Christ.

Wherefore he saith, "He that is joined to a harlot is one body; but he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit." For such an one becomes thenceforth Spirit, although a body envelope him. For when nothing corporeal nor gross nor earthly is around him, the body doth but merely envelope him; since the whole government of him is in the soul and the Spirit. In this way God is glorified. Wherefore both in the Prayer we are commanded to say, "Hallowed be Thy Name:" and Christ saith also, "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

So do the heavens also glorify Him, uttering no voice, but by the view of them attracting wonder and referring the glory unto the Great Artificer. So let us glorify Him also, or rather more than they. For we can if we will. For not so much do the heaven nor day nor night glorify God, as a holy soul. For as one that gazeth upon the beauty of the heaven, saith, "Glory be to Thee, O God! How fair a work hast thou formed!" so too when beholding virtue in any man: nay, and much more so in the latter instance. For from these works of creation all do not glorify God; but many even assert that the things which exist are self-moving: and others impute to demons the workmanship of the world and providence; and these indeed greatly and unpardonably err: but in regard to the virtue of man, no one shall have power to hold these shameless opinions, but shall assuredly glorify God when he seeth him that serveth Him living in goodness. For who shall help being astonished when one being a man, and partaking of our common nature, and living among other men, like adamant yields not at all to the swarm of passions? when he is injured, and blesses; when he is evil reported of, and praises; when he is despitefully used, and prays for those who injure him; when he is plotted against, and does good to those that fight with him and lay snares for him? For these things, and such as these, will glorify God far more than the heaven. For the Greeks when they behold the heavens feel no awe; but when they see a holy man exhibiting a severe course of life with all strictness, they shrink away and condemn themselves. Since when he that partakes of the same nature as themselves is so much above them, a great deal more so than the heaven is above the earth, even against their inclination they think that it is a Divine power which works these things. Wherefore He saith, "And glorify your Father which is in heaven."

We Are Not Irremediably In Error

"It is not true, as some maintain who are led astray by error, that the human being is irremediably dead and can no longer do anything good. A small child is incapable of anything; it cannot run to its mother on its own legs; it tumbles on the ground, cries out, sobs, calls out to her. And she is gentle with it, she is touched to see her baby seeking her so impatiently with so many sobs. It cannot reach her but cries out to her tirelessly, and she goes to it overcome with love, she kisses it, presses it to her heart and feeds it, with unspeakable tenderness. God loves us and he behaves like her towards the soul that seeks him and cries out to him. In the eagerness of that infinite love that is his… He takes hold of our spirit, unites Himself to it, and we become 'one spirit with Him', as the apostle says (I Corinthians 6.17). The soul is linked with the Lord, and the Lord, full of compassion and love, unites Himself to it and it dwells in his grace. Then the soul and the Lord are one spiritually, they form one life, one heart." - "Homily 46"

The soul of Jesus clung to God from the beginning of the creation in a union inseparable and indissoluble, as the soul of the wisdom and word of God, and of the truth and the true light. Receiving him wholly and itself entering into his light and splendor, it was made one spirit with him in a preeminent degree. This is what the apostle promises to those who imitate Jesus.

The Apostle says that the righteous man is one with Christ, but he is distinct from Christ: "And he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with Him." Is it not true that one of them has a lower nature, transient and fleeting, while the nature of Christ is more divine and glorious and blessed? And notwithstanding this, are they no longer two? Yes, for man and woman are no longer two, but one flesh, and the righteous man and Christ are one spirit. … When the righteous man cleaves to Christ, the fitting word is spirit. But when Christ is one with the Father, the fitting word is neither flesh nor spirit, but the more worthy one — God.

"He who cleaves to the Lord becomes one spirit" with him. If, then, "he who is joined to the Lord", though he was natural, is by that very thing turned into a spiritual man and "is one spirit", let us too lose our soul, so that, cleaving to the Lord, we may be transformed into one spirit.

See how by the very names of the harlot and of Christ he continues and intensifies the accusation. He says that "he who is joined to the Lord" becomes nothing other than "spirit," since he does nothing carnal — that is, he becomes spiritual. For union with the Lord grants him the sanctification of the Spirit. In these words he also showed how the faithful become members of Christ.

Secondly he proves the minor saying: But he who is united to the Lord, namely, by faith and charity, is one spirit with him, namely, because he is united to Him in a spiritual, not a bodily, unity. Hence it says in Rom (8:9): "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him," and in Jn (17:21): "That they may be one in us, as we are one," namely by a connection of the Spirit. And because the body serves the spirit, it follows that our bodies too are members of Him to whom we are united by the Spirit, not of course, by a bodily but by a spiritual union. From the two reasons given above one reason can be formed, namely, that because our body is not destined for fornication but for the Lord in such a way that our members are Christ's members, as he explains later, we should not make them members of a prostitute by fornicating.

And therefore the Apostle says: Flee from fornication; so that by a swift flight, we may avoid the cruelty of the raging mistress and be able to escape from her foul service.

If someone hangs himself or kills himself with a dagger, he does not sin against his body but against his soul, on which he inflicts violence. But to fornicate is a sin of the body which touches both the body and the soul.

Or if he appoints himself a searcher and judge of the heart and reins, let him in all cases judge equally. And as he knows that it is written, "Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee," let him separate the fraudulent and adulterers from his side and from his company, since the case of an adulterer is by far both graver and worse than that of one who has taken a certificate, because the latter has sinned by necessity, the former by free will: the latter, thinking that it is sufficient for him that he has not sacrificed, has been deceived by an error; the former, a violator of the matrimonial tie of another, or entering a brothel, into the sink and filthy gulf of the common people, has befouled by detestable impurity a sanctified body and God's temple, as says the apostle: "Every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body." And yet to these persons themselves repentance is granted, and the hope of lamenting and atoning is left, according to the saying of the same apostle: "I fear lest, when I come to you, I shall bewail many of those who have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness which they have committed."

That the sin of fornication is grievous. In the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: "Every sin whatsoever a man doeth is outside the body; but he who committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear the Lord in your body."

Gregory said, 'God asks three things of anyone who is baptized: to keep the true faith with all his soul and all his might; to control his tongue; to be chaste in his body.'

"Flee fornication."

He said not, "abstain from fornication," but "Flee:" that is, with all zeal make to yourselves deliverance from that evil. "Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body." This is less than what went before; but since he had to speak of fornicators, he amplifies that guilt by topics drawn from all quarters, from greater things and smaller alike, making the charge heinous. And, in fact, that former topic was addressed to the more religious, but this to the weaker sort. For this also is characteristic of the wisdom of Paul, not only to allege the great things wherewith to abash men, but the lesser also, and the consideration of what is disgraceful and unseemly.

"What then," say you, "does not the murderer stain his hand? What, of the covetous person and the extortioner?" I suppose it is plain to every one. But since it was not possible to mention anything worse than the fornicator, he amplifies the crime in another way, by saying that in the fornicator the entire body becomes defiled. For it is as polluted as if it had fallen into a vessel of filth, and been immersed in defilement. And this too is our way. For from covetousness and extortion no one would make haste to go into a bath, but as if nothing had happened returns to his house. Whereas from intercourse with a harlot, as having become altogether unclean, he goes to a bath. To such a degree does the conscience retain from this sin a kind of sense of unusual shame. Both however are bad, both covetousness and fornication; and both cast into hell. But as Paul doeth every thing with good management, so by whatever topics he had he magnified the sin of fornication.

Fornication multiplies sins because two people are involved, and both perish together.

"Every sin which a human being may have committed is extraneous to the body; but whoever fornicateth, sinneth against his own body." And, for fear you should fly to that statement for a licence to fornication, on the ground that you will be sinning against a thing which is yours, not the Lord's, he takes you away from yourself, and awards you, according to his previous disposition, to Christ: "And ye are not your own; "immediately opposing (thereto), "for bought ye are with a price"-the blood, to wit, of the Lord: "glorify and extol the Lord in your body.

Note that Paul did not say that we should hate immorality, but that we should shun it as people who are aware of the perniciousness of evil.

He prescribes to flee from fornication as from a kind of persecutor, from whom we cannot be safe for even a single moment, and to strain every effort to abstain from it.

Fornication, he says, defiles the entire body, which is why those who have committed fornication usually go to the baths as well, testifying thereby that their body has been defiled. Thus the fornicator sins against his own body, defiling and soiling it. Although murder, it seems, is also committed with the body, yet it does not defile the entire body; for one can throw a stone, or a piece of wood, or some other object, but it is impossible to commit fornication without the body: therefore it is always defiled. However, the apostle's intention was to present the gravity of this sin in an exaggerated manner, since his present exhortation concerns it; for fornication is by no means a vice worse than all other vices. I know other explanations on this subject as well. One is the following: the fornicator sins against his own body in the sense that he does not unite for the purpose of producing children, as in union with a lawful wife, but needlessly ruins it by the emission of seed and thereby weakens it. Another explanation: the fornicator sins against the woman with whom he unites, since she becomes his body through this, and therefore if he unites with her unlawfully, he sins against her. However, the explanation of the great John Chrysostom is better than all of them: I mean the first explanation. Furthermore, some raise a doubt and ask: what then? Does not envy also dry out the body? And they resolve this question as follows: envy is a passion, not an action. But the apostle is now speaking of action (for here are his words: "every sin that a man commits"), not of passion. Indeed, envy is not produced by us, but occurs within us.

Then when he says, Flee fornication, he presents a third reason, which is taken from the body's contamination. First, he presents the conclusion, saying, Flee fornication. Here it should be noted that other vices are overcome by resisting, because the more a man considers and deals with particulars, the less will he find in them anything in which to take delight, but more to be cautious about. But the vice of fornication is not overcome by resisting, because the more a man considers the particular case the more is he inflamed; but it is overcome by fleeing, i.e., by avoiding entirely all unclean thoughts and all occasions whatsoever, for it says in Zech (2:6): "Flee from the land of the north."

Secondly he assigns the reason, saying: Every other sin a man commits is outside the body. To understand this it should be noted that some sins do not end in carnal delight, but only in spiritual, and are then called spiritual sins; for example, pride, greed and spiritual apathy. But fornication is entirely completed in carnal delight. According to this it could be understood what is said here: Every other sin a man commits is outside the body, namely, because it is completed outside the pleasure of the body. But the fornicator sins against his own body, namely, because the sin is completed in the flesh.

But the fact that the sin of gluttony is terminated in bodily pleasure seems to be contrary to the above explanation. A possible answer might be that the sin of gluttony is contained under lust, inasmuch as it is ordained to it, as it says in Eph (5:18): "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery." But it is better to say that the Apostle is not saying that whoever fornicates sins with his own body, which would agree with the first explanation, but he sins against his own body by corrupting and contaminating it beyond the bounds of reason. Hence it says in Rev (3:4): "You still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments," and in Rev (14:4): "It is these who have not defiled themselves with women." Or in another way according to Augustine: "Whoever fornicates sins against his own body, because his soul is totally subjected to the flesh in that act, so that it cannot at that time think of anything else." "Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding" (Ps 32:9). Or in another way: he sins against his own body, i.e., against his wife, who is called the husband's body, against whom other sins are not as directly opposed as the husband's fornication. Hence it says in 1 Thess (4:4): "That each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor." Or again according to Augustine, it can be understood of spiritual fornication through which the soul clings through love to the world and recedes from God: "Those who are far from you shall perish" (Ps 73:27). The sense, therefore, is that whoever fornicates and recedes from God for love of the world sins against his own body, i.e., by bodily desire. But every other sin, for example, which one commits from forgetfulness or ignorance or negligence, is outside the body, i.e., outside of bodily desire.

Paul said this with the intention that we should keep our bodies uncontaminated, so that the Holy Spirit may dwell in them.

For you are translated from your former vain and tedious mode of life and have contemned the lifeless idols, and despised the demons, which are in darkness, and have run to the "true light," [John 1:9] and by it have "known the one and only true God and Father," [John 17:3] and so are owned to be heirs of His kingdom. For since you have "been baptized into the Lord's death," [Romans 6:3] and into His resurrection, as "new-born babes," [1 Peter 2:2] you ought to be wholly free from all sinful actions; "for you are not your own, but His that bought you" [1 Corinthians 6:19-20] with His own blood.

To approach Christ is through faith, or through the Sacrament of faith; and the faith of Christ is the same in past, present, and future: therefore the ground of influencing is posited in Christ with respect to all, past as well as present as well as future, who believe in Christ and are reborn in Christ, who through faith are joined to Christ and through inflowing grace become members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit, and thereby children of God the Father, connected to one another through the indivisible bond of charity. Which just as it is not divided by distance of places, so neither is it separated by length of times; and thereby all the just, wherever they may be and whenever they may have been, constitute one mystical body of Christ, receiving sense and motion from the one influencing head, according to the fontal, radical, and original fullness of all grace dwelling in Christ as in a fountain.

Let us go back to the man who says that a thing cannot be wrong unless it hurts some other human being. He quite understands that he must not damage the other ships in the convoy, but he honestly thinks that what he does to his own ship is simply his own business. But does it not make a great difference whether his ship is his own property or not? Does it not make a great difference whether I am, so to speak, the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a tenant, responsible to the real landlord? If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself.

The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell and we must keep them doing so. Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they "own" their bodies--those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another! It is as if a royal child whom his father has placed, for love's sake, in titular command of some great province, under the real rule of wise counsellors, should come to fancy he really owns the cities, the forests, and the corn, in the same way as he owns the bricks on the nursery floor.

We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion. We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun--the finely graded differences that run from "my boots" through "my dog", "my servant", "my wife", "my father", "my master" and "my country", to "my God". They can be taught to reduce all these senses to that of "my boots", the "my" of ownership. Even in the nursery a child can be taught to mean by "my Teddy-bear" not the old imagined recipient of affection to whom it stands in a special relation (for that is what the Enemy will teach them to mean if we are not careful) but "the bear I can pull to pieces if I like". And at the other end of the scale, we have taught men to say "My God" in a sense not really very different from "My boots", meaning "The God on whom I have a claim for my distinguished services and whom I exploit from the pulpit--the God I have done a corner in".

And all the time the joke is that the word "Mine" in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say "Mine" of each thing that exists, and specially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong--certainly not to them, whatever happens. At present the Enemy says "Mine" of everything on the pedantic, legalistic ground that He made it: Our Father hopes in the end to say "Mine" of all things on the more realistic and dynamic ground of conquest,

That he who has attained to trust, having put off the former man, ought to regard only celestial and spiritual things, and to give no heed to the world which he has already renounced... Of this same thing in Matthew: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man hath not where He may lay His head." Also in the same place: "Whoso forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple." Of this same thing in the first to the Corinthians: "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body."

There is nothing which is hid from God, but our very secrets are near to Him. Let us therefore do all things as those who have Him dwelling in us, that we may be His temples, and He may be in us as our God, which indeed He is, and will manifest Himself before our faces. Wherefore we justly love Him.

"Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" He did not merely say, "of the Spirit," but, "which is in you;" which was the part of one who also was soothing. And again, explaining himself still further, he added, "which ye have from God." He mentioned Him that gave also, both exalting the hearer and putting him in fear, both by the magnitude of the deposit, and by the munificence of Him that made it.

"And ye are not you own." This is not only to abash, but even to force men towards virtue. "For why," says he; "doest thou what thou wilt? thou art not thine own master." But these things he said, not to take away free-will. For so in saying, "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient," he does not take away our liberty. And here again, writing, "Ye are not your own;" he makes no infringement upon freedom of choice, but he leads away from vice and indicates the guardian care of the Lord. And therefore he added, "For ye were bought with a price."

"But if I am not my own, upon what ground do you demand of me duties to be done? And why do you go on to say again, 'Glorify God therefore in your body and in your spirit, which are God's?'" What then is the meaning of, "ye are not your own?" And what does he wish to prove thereby? To settle them in a state of security against sin, and against following the improper desires of the mind. For indeed we have many improper wishes: but we must repress them, for we can. And if we could not, exhortation would be in vain.

Now when the body hath intercourse with the soul, and the soul with the spirit, and through the spirit with the Trinity, in very deed are accomplished the words, "The Lord is over all, and in us all", and, "Ye are the temple of the Lord, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you." But Paul also frighteneth that soul which alloweth the body to become a minister unto fornication, saying, "Whosoever destroyeth the temple of God, God will destroy." And hereby he teacheth the soul not to allow the body to be corrupted by the union of fornication, because from this injury accrueth unto it, for together with the destruction of the body by its natural lusts, will the soul be condemned by the judgment which is for ever. And well did God ordain this retribution for the soul, though it is decreed for both the soul and the body by Him, because the soul in allowing the body to be debased unto the lusts of its nature will destroy it, and being able to restrain it, restraineth it not, and having the power to make it taste the sweetness of the lust for itself, the sweetness of its own corrupt lust, that is, the motions, and passions, and forms of which belong to shame, was pleasant unto it.

Let them, therefore, with fasting and with prayer make their adjurations, and not with the elegant and well-arranged and fitly-ordered words of learning, but as men who have received the gift of healing from God, confidently, to the glory of God. By your fastings and prayers and perpetual watching, together with your other good works, mortify the works of the flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit. He who acts thus "is a temple of the Holy Spirit of God." [1 Corinthians 6:19]

The fornicator is also guilty of impiety, for by doing harm to his body he has corrupted the temple of the Holy Spirit.

In the Platonic view, the body is a prison; in that of Paul, it is the temple of God because it is in Christ.

In Platonic phrase, indeed, the body is a prison, but in the apostle's it is "the temple of God," because it is in Christ.

For since, by the introduction into an appropriation (in) us of the Holy Spirit, we are all" the temple of God," Modesty is the sacristan and priestess of that temple, who is to suffer nothing unclean or profane to be introduced (into it), for fear that the God who inhabits it should be offended, and quite forsake the polluted abode.

So far as I know, "we are not our own, but bought with a price; " and what kind of price? The blood of God.

And, accordingly, why excuse it on the ground of pristine precedent? It did not bear the names of "body of Christ," of "members of Christ," of "temple of God," at the time When it used to obtain pardon for adultery.

And, for fear you should fly to that statement for a licence to fornication, on the ground that you will be sinning against a thing which is yours, not the Lord's, he takes you away from yourself, and awards you, according to his previous disposition, to Christ: "And ye are not your own; "immediately opposing (thereto), "for bought ye are with a price"-the blood, to wit, of the Lord: "glorify and extol the Lord in your body." See whether he who gives this injunction be likely to have pardoned one who has disgraced the Lord, and who has cast Him down from (the empire of) his body, and this indeed through incest.

He frightens them even more—both by the greatness of the gift, that is, the Spirit, and by the dignity of the one who bestowed the gift, that is, God. You, he says, are a temple, and moreover a holy one, for you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not defile the holy temple, then, and do not render the gift of God useless; for from God you have the gift and the Spirit.

You, he says, are under the Master and have nothing of your own; the body itself is not yours. "For you were bought with a dear price," that is, with the Blood of Christ. Therefore your members are subject to another Master, and to whatever is pleasing to Him, to that you must direct their activity. In saying this, he does not abolish free will, but shows that God, by Whom we have been redeemed, rightfully demands from us service to Himself.

Then when he says, Do you not know, he presents the fourth reason, which is taken from the dignity of grace, which arises from two sources, namely, from the grace of the Holy Spirit and from the redemption of Christ's blood. In regard to this he does three things: first, he declares the dignity of our body, which it has from the grace of the Holy Spirit, saying: Do you not know, as though you should not be unaware of it, that your body, namely, bodily, is a temple of the Holy Spirit, just as he said above (3:16): "Do you not know that you are God's temple?" Then he assigns a reason for this, saying: who is within you. God's house is called a temple. Therefore, because the Holy Spirit is God, it is correct to say that anyone in whom the Holy Spirit exists is called a temple of God. But the Holy Spirit is chiefly in the heart of men, in whom the love of God is poured out by the Holy Spirit, as it says in Rom (5:5). But secondarily, He is also in the bodily members, inasmuch as they perform acts of charity. Hence it says in Ps 84 (v. 2): "My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God." But lest they ascribe this dignity to themselves, he adds: which you have from God and not from yourselves. Hence Jl (2:28): "I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh."

Someone who has been bought does not have the power to make decisions, but the person who bought him does. And because we were bought for a very high price, we ought to serve our master all the more, so that the offense from which he has bought our release may not turn us back over to death.

This is the price of which the Apostle says: "You have been bought with a great price; bear and glorify God in your body." That the price is great, the Apostle Peter says: "You were redeemed not with corruptible gold or silver from your vain manner of life received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood as of a Lamb unspotted and undefiled." This had to be a great price, by which the whole world and the entire human race was to be redeemed; because man could not make satisfaction, since no single man could be worth all men, nor could any creature. Nothing was sufficient to redeem the entire human race unless it possessed human nature and a nature above every creature; therefore it was necessary that it possess both a divine and a human nature.

Let us not give our body to sin. "We have been bought at a great price. Do not become servants of men" nor of demons nor of sins. If I had redeemed some servant, I would not give him away for nothing.

We ought then, beloved brethren, to remember and to know, that when we call God Father, we ought to act as God's children; so that in the measure in which we find pleasure in considering God as a Father, He might also be able to find pleasure in us. Let us converse as temples of God, that it may be plain that God dwells in us. Let not our doings be degenerate from the Spirit; so that we who have begun to be heavenly and spiritual, may consider and do nothing but spiritual and heavenly things; since the Lord God Himself has said, "Them that honour me I will honour; and he that despiseth me shall be despised." The blessed apostle also has laid down in his epistle: "Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear about God in your body."

That, being redeemed and quickened by the blood of Christ, we ought to prefer nothing to Christ. In the Gospel the Lord speaks, and says: "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that taketh not his cross and followeth me, is not worthy of me." So also it is written in Deuteronomy: "They who say to their father and their mother, I have not known thee, and have not acknowledged their own children, these have kept Thy precepts, and have observed Thy covenant." Moreover, the Apostle Paul says: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, Because for Thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we overcome on account of Him who hath loved us." And again: "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body." And again: "Christ died for all, that both they which live may not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again."

But if in Holy Scripture discipline is frequently and everywhere prescribed, and the whole foundation of religion and of faith proceeds from obedience and fear; what is more fitting for us urgently to desire, what more to wish for and to hold fast, than to stand with roots strongly fixed, and with our houses based with solid mass upon the rock unshaken by the storms and whirlwinds of the world, so that we may come by the divine precepts to the rewards of God? considering as well as knowing that our members, when purged from all the filth of the old contagion by the sanctification of the layer of life, are God's temples, and must not be violated nor polluted, since he who does violence to them is himself injured. We are the worshippers and priests of those temples; let us obey Him whose we have already begun to be. Paul tells us in his epistles, in which he has formed us to a course of living by divine teaching, "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a great price; glorify and bear God in your body." Let us glorify and bear God in a pure and chaste body, and with a more complete obedience; and since we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, let us obey and give furtherance to the empire of our Redeemer by all the obedience of service, that nothing impure or profane may be brought into the temple of God, lost He should be offended, and forsake the temple which He inhabits.

And again, to the Philippians he says: "But our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who shall transfigure the body of our humiliation conformable to the body of His glory, even as He is able (ita ut possit) according to the working of His own power." What, then, is this "body of humiliation" which the Lord shall transfigure, [so as to be] conformed to "the body of His glory?" Plainly it is this body composed of flesh, which is indeed humbled when it falls into the earth. Now its transformation [takes place thus], that while it is mortal and corruptible, it becomes immortal and incorruptible, not after its own proper substance, but after the mighty working of the Lord, who is able to invest the mortal with immortality, and the corruptible with incorruption. And therefore he says, "that mortality may be swallowed up of life. He who has perfected us for this very thing is God, who also has given unto us the earnest of the Spirit." He uses these words most manifestly in reference to the flesh; for the soul is not mortal, neither is the spirit. Now, what is mortal shall be swallowed up of life, when the flesh is dead no longer, but remains living and incorruptible, hymning the praises of God, who has perfected us for this very thing. In order, therefore, that we may be perfected for this, aptly does he say to the Corinthians, "Glorify God in your body." Now God is He who gives rise to immortality.

Mark, accordingly, how he secures his ground. For having said, "Ye are not your own," he adds not, "But are under compulsion;" but, "Ye were bought with a price." Why sayest thou this? Surely on another ground, one might say perhaps, you should have persuaded men, pointing out that we have a Master. But this is common to the Greeks also together with us: whereas the expression, "Ye were bought with a price," belongs to us peculiarly. For he reminds us of the greatness of the benefit and of the mode of our salvation, signifying that when we were alienated, we were "bought:" and not simply "bought," but, "with a price."

"Glorify then, take up and bear, God in your body, and in your spirit." Now these things he says, that we may not only flee fornication in the body, but also in the spirit of our mind abstain from every wicked thought, and from driving away grace.

"Which are God's." For as he had said "your," he added therefore, "which are God's:" continually reminding us that all things belong to the Lord, both body and soul and spirit: For some say, that the words "in the spirit" mean the gracious Gift; for if That be in us, God is glorified. And this will be, if we have a clean heart.

But He has spoken of these things as God's, not only because He brought them into being, but also because, when they were alienated, He won them again a second time, paying as the price, the blood of the Son. Mark how He brought the whole to completion in Christ, how He raised us up into heaven. "Ye are members of Christ," saith he, "ye are a temple of the Spirit." Become not then "members of a harlot:" for it is not your body which is insulted; since it is not your body at all, but Christ's. And these things he spake, both to make manifest His loving-kindness in that our body is His, and to withdraw us from all evil license. For if the body be another's, "you have no authority," says he, "to insult another's body; and especially when it is the Lord's; nor yet to pollute a temple of the Spirit." For if any one who invades a private house and makes his way revelling into it, must answer for it most severely; think what dreadful things he shall endure who makes a temple of the King a robber's lurking place.

Considering these things therefore, reverence thou Him that dwelleth within. For the Paraclete is He. Thrill before Him that is enfolded and cleaves unto thee; for Christ is He. Hast thou indeed made thyself members of Christ? Think thus, and continue chaste; whose members they were, and Whose they have become. Erewhile they were members of an harlot, and Christ hath made them members of His own Body. Thou hast therefore henceforth no authority over them. Serve Him that hath set thee free.

For supposing you had a daughter, and in extreme madness had let her out to a procurer for hire, and made her live a harlot's life, and then a king's son were to pass by, and free her from that slavery, and join her in marriage to himself; you could have no power thenceforth to bring her into the brothel. For you gave her up once for all, and sold her. Such as this is our case also. We let out our own flesh for hire unto the Devil, that grievous procurer: Christ saw and set it free, and withdrew it from that evil tyranny; it is not then ours any more but His who delivered it. If you be willing to use it as a King's bride, there is none to hinder; but if you bring it where it was before, you will suffer just what they ought who are guilty of such outrages. Wherefore you should rather adorn instead of disgracing it. For you have no authority over the flesh in the wicked lusts, but in those things alone which God may enjoin. Let the thought enter your mind at least from what great outrage God hath delivered it. For in truth never did any harlot expose herself so shamefully as our nature before this. For robberies, murders, and every wicked thought entered in and lay with the soul, and for a small and vulgar hire, the present pleasure. For the soul, being mixed up with all wicked devices and deeds, reaped this reward and no other.

And suitably does he add the question: "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? " What has the heretic to say? That these members of Christ will not rise again, for they are no longer our own? "For," he says, "ye are bought with a price." A price! surely none at all was paid, since Christ was a phantom, nor had He any corporeal substance which He could pay for our bodies! But, in truth, Christ had wherewithal to redeem us; and since He has redeemed, at a great price, these bodies of ours, against which fornication must not be committed (because they are now members of Christ, and not our own), surely He will secure, on His own account, the safety of those whom He made His own at so much cost! Now, how shall we glorify, how shall we exalt, God in our body, which is doomed to perish? We must now encounter the subject of marriage, which Marcion, more continent than the apostle, prohibits.

A price! surely none at all was paid, since Christ was a phantom, nor had He any corporeal substance which He could pay for our bodies! But, in truth, Christ had wherewithal to redeem us; and since He has redeemed, at a great price, these bodies of ours, against which fornication must not be committed (because they are now members of Christ, and not our own), surely He will secure, on His own account, the safety of those whom He made His own at so much cost! Now, how shall we glorify, how shall we exalt, God in our body, which is doomed to perish? We must now encounter the subject of marriage, which Marcion, more continent than the apostle, prohibits.

So, again, when he is ascribing certain praiseworthy actions to the flesh, he says, "Therefore glorify and exalt God in your body," -being certain that such efforts are actuated by the soul; but still he ascribes them to the flesh, because it is to it that he also promises the recompense.

And thus if, from the moment when it changed its condition, and "having been baptized into Christ put on Christ," and was "redeemed with a great price"-"the blood," to wit, "of the Lord and Lamb" -you take hold of any one precedent (be it precept, or law, or sentence,) of indulgence granted, or to be granted, to adultery and fornication,-you have likewise at our hands a definition of the time from which the age of the question dates.

So, since you have been bought, he says, glorify God in your body, that is, by performing good deeds with the body and keeping it holy and pure. For the glorification of God consists in people seeing your good deeds and as a result glorifying Him.

He shows that one must flee fornication not only with the body, but also with the soul, so as not to be defiled even in thought (for by "soul" he meant the mind). In the Gospel (Matt. 5:28) even that adultery which remains only in the heart is forbidden.

You are not your own, he continually reminds, but are under the dominion of God, Who redeemed both our soul and our body.

Secondly, he mentions the dignity our bodies have from the redemption of Christ, saying: You are not your own but Jesus Christ's, as it says in Rom (14:8): "Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's"; "Those who live no longer live for themselves" (2 Cor 5:15). He assigns the reason for this when he says: You were bought with a great price; therefore, you are slaves of Him who has redeemed you from the slavery of sin; hence it says below (7:22): "For he who was called in the Lord as a freedman is a slave of the Lord"; and in Ps 31 (v. 5): "You have redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth." The price of redemption is called great, because it is not corruptible, but has everlasting power, since it is the blood of the everlasting God. Hence it says in 1 Pet (1:18): "You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ."

Thirdly, he draws the intended conclusion, saying: So glorify and carry God in your body. For since your members are a temple of God, nothing should appear in your body except what pertains to God's glory: and this is to glorify God in your body, because it says in Ps 29 (v. 9): "In his temple all cry, 'Glory'"; and again, "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle" (Ex 40:34). Furthermore, because you are not your own, but you are slaves of God, you should carry God as a horse or other animal carries its lord. Hence it says in Ps 73 (v. 23): "I was like a beast towards you." Our body carries the Lord, inasmuch as it is deputed to a divine ministry. Thus, therefore, a man should avoid sinning against his own body by fornicating, which is against the glory of God and against the ministry our body owes to God.