Tertullian: de Pudicitia

[1] Pudicitia, flos morum, honor corporum, decor sexuum, integritas sanguinis, fides generis, fundamentum sanctitatis, praeiudicium omnibus bonae mentis, quamquam rara nec facile perfecta uixque perpetua, tamen aliquatenus in saeculo morabatur, si natura praestruxerat, si disciplina persuaserat, si censura compresserat, siquidem omne animi bonum aut nascitur aut eruditur aut cogitur.

[1] Pudicity, flower of morals, honor of bodies, decor of the sexes, integrity of blood, fidelity of lineage, foundation of sanctity, a presumption in favor of every good mind, although rare and not easily perfected and scarcely perpetual, nevertheless to some extent lingered in the age, if nature had prearranged it, if discipline had persuaded it, if censure had restrained it, since indeed every good of the mind either is born or is educated or is compelled.

[2] Sed ut mala magis uincunt, quod ultimorum temporum ratio est, bona iam nec nasci licet, ita corrupta sunt semina, nec erudiri, ita deserta sunt studia, nec cogi, ita exarmata sunt iura.

[2] But, as evils prevail the more, which is the condition of the last times, the good things now are not even permitted to be born, so corrupted are the seeds, nor to be educated, so deserted are the studies, nor to be compelled, so disarmed are the laws.

[3] Denique de qua incipimus eo usque iam exoleuit, ut non eiuratio, sed moderatio libidinum pudicitia credatur, isque satis castus habeatur, qui non nimis castus fuerit.

[3] Finally as to that with which we are beginning, it has now so withered away, that not abjuration, but the moderation of libidinous desires is thought to be chastity, and he is held sufficiently chaste who has not been too chaste.

[4] Sed uiderit saeculi pudicitia cum saeculo ipso, cum suo ingenio si nascebatur, cum suo studio si erudiebatur, cum suo seruitio si cogebatur; nisi quod infelicior etiam, si stetisset ut infructuosa, quae non apud Deum egisset. Malo nullum bonum quam uanum. Quid prodest esse, quod non prodest?

[4] But let the pudicity of the age see to itself with the age itself, with its own nature if it was being born, with its own zeal if it was being trained by erudition, with its own servitude if it was being compelled; unless that it would be even more unfortunate, if it had stood as unfruitful, which had not acted before God. I prefer no good to a vain one. What profit is there in being, which does not profit?

[5] Nostrorum bonorum status iam mergitur, Christianae pudicitiae ratio concutitur, quae omnia de caelo trahit, et naturamper lauacrum regenerationis, et disciplinam per instrumentum praedicationis, et censuram per iudicia ex utroque testamento, et coacta constantius ex metu et uoto aeterni ignis et regni.

[5] The standing of our goods is already sinking, the rationale of Christian chastity is being shaken, which draws all things from heaven, and naturethrough the laver of regeneration, and discipline through the instrument of preaching, and censure through judgments from both testaments, and things compelled more steadfastly from the fear and vow of the eternal fire and of the kingdom.

[6] Aduersus hanc nunc, ne dissimulare potuissem, audio etiam edictum esse propositum, et quidem peremptorium. Pontifex scilicet maximus, episcopus episcoporum, edicit: « Ego et moechiae et fornicationis delicta paenitentia functis dimitto. »

[6] Against
this now, so that I could not dissemble, I hear that even an edict has been posted, and
indeed a peremptory one. The Pontifex Maximus, the bishop of bishops, issues an edict:
« I remit the crimes of adultery and of fornication to those who have performed penance. »

[7] O edictum cui adscribi non poterit: Bonum factum! Et ubi proponetur liberalitas ista? Ibidem, opinor, in ipsis libidinum ianuis, sub ipsis libidinum titulis.

[7] O an edict to which “Well done!” cannot be appended. And where will that liberality be posted? There, I suppose, on the very doorways of lust, beneath the very titles of lusts.

Illic eiusmodi paenitentia promulganda est, ubi delinquentia ipsa uersabitur. Illic legenda est uenia, quo cum spe eius intrabitur.

There such a penitence is to be promulgated, where the delinquency itself will be carried on. There the pardon is to be read, where one will enter with hope of it.

[8] Sed hoc in ecclesia legitur, et in ecclesia pronuntiatur, et uirgo est. Absit, absit a sponsa Christi tale praeconium! Illa, quae uera est, quae pudica, quae sancta, carebit etiam aurium macula.

[8] But this is read in the church, and in the church it is proclaimed, and she is a virgin. Far be it, far be it from the bride of Christ, such a proclamation! She, who is true, who is chaste, who is holy, will be without even a blemish of the ears.

[9] Non habet, quibus hoc repromittat, et si habuerit, non repromittit, quod et terrenum Dei templum citius spelunca latronum appellari potuit a Domino quam moechorum et fornicatorum.

[9] She has not those to whom she might re-promise this, and if she should have, she does not re-promise it, since even the earthly
temple of God could sooner be called by the Lord a den of robbers than of adulterers and
fornicators.

[10] Erit igitur et hic aduersus psychicos titulus, aduersus meae quoque sententiae retro penes illos societatem, quo magis hoc mihi in notam leuitatis obiciant. Numquam societatis repudium delicti praeiudicium. Quasi non facilius sit errare cum pluribus, quando ueritas cum paucis ametur.

[10] There will therefore be here too a charge against the Psychics, against the former fellowship of my own opinion among them, so that all the more they may cast this up to me as a mark of levity. Never is the repudiation of society a prejudgment of delict. As though it were not easier to err with the many, when truth is loved with the few.

[11] At enim me non magis dedecorabit utilis leuitas quam ornarit nocens. Non suffundor errore quo carui, quia caruisse delector, quia meliorem me et pudiciorem recognosco.

[11] But indeed a useful levity will not dishonor me any more than a harmful one would adorn me. I am not suffused with shame for the error which I lacked, because I take delight in having lacked it, because I recognize myself as better and more modest.

[12] Nemo proficiens erubescit. Habet et in Christo scientia aetates suas, per quas deuolutus est et apostolus:Cum paruulus, inquit, essem, tamquam paruulus loquebar, tamquam paruulus sapiebam; at ubi uir sum factus, ea quae paruuli fuerant euacuaui.

[12] No one progressing is ashamed. Knowledge too has its ages in Christ, through which the apostle also passed:When I was a little child, he says, I spoke as a little child, I thought as a little child; but when I became a man, the things that were of the little child I made void.

[13] Adeo diuertit a sententiis pristinis nec idcirco deliquit, quod aemulator factus est non paternarum traditionum, sed Christianarum, optans etiam ut praeciderentur qui circumcisionem detinendam suadebant.

[13] So much did he divert from his former opinions, nor on that account did he do wrong, since he became an emulator not of paternal traditions, but of Christian ones, even wishing that there be cut off those who were advising that circumcision be retained.

[14] Atque utinam et isti, qui meram et ueram integritatem carnis obtruncant amputantes non summam superficiem, sed intimam effigiem pudoris ipsius, cum moechis et fornicatoribus ueniam pollicentur aduersus principalem Christiani nominis disciplinam, quam ipsum quoque saeculum usque adeo testatur, ut, si quando, eam in feminis nostris inquinamentis potius carnis quam tormentis punire contendat id uolens eripere quod uitae anteponunt.

[14] And would that those men too, who mutilate the mere and true integrity of the flesh, amputating not the highest surface, but the inmost effigy of modesty itself, when they promise pardon to adulterers and fornicators against the principal discipline of the Christian name, which even the age itself attests to such a degree that, if ever, it should strive to punish it in our women by defilements of the flesh rather than by torments—desiring to snatch away that which they prefer to life.

[15] Sed iam haec gloria extinguitur et quidem per eos quos tanto constantius oportuerat eiusmodi maculis nullam subscribere ueniam, quando propterea, quotiens uolunt, nubant, ne moechiae et fornicationi succidere cogantur, quodmelius est nubere quam uri.

[15] But
now this glory is extinguished, and indeed by those who ought, all the more steadfastly, to grant no pardon to stains of this sort, since for that reason, as often as they wish, they marry, lest they be compelled to fall into adultery and fornication, because it is better to marry than to burn.

[16] Nimirum propter continentiam incontinentia necessaria est, incendium ignibus extinguetur. Cur ergo et crimma postmodum indulgent paenitentiae nomine, quorum remedia praestituunt multinubentiae iure?

[16] Doubtless
on account of continence, incontinence is necessary; the conflagration will be extinguished by fires.
Why therefore do they also afterward indulge the crime under the name of penitence, whose
remedies they pre-establish by the right of multi-nuptiality?

[17] Nam et remedia uacabunt, cum crimina indulgentur et crimina manebunt, si remedia uacabunt. Itaque utrobique de sollicitudine et neglegentia ludunt, praecauendo uanissime quibus parcunt et parcendo ineptissime quibus praecauent, cum aut praecauendum non sit ubi parcitur aut parcendum non sit ubi praecauetur.

[17] For both the remedies will be vacant, when crimes are indulged, and the crimes will remain, if the remedies are vacant. Accordingly, on both sides they play with solicitude and negligence, by taking precautions most vainly for those whom they spare, and by sparing most ineptly those against whom they take precautions, since either there ought not to be precaution where pardon is granted, or there ought to be no pardon where precaution is taken.

[18] Praecauent enim, quasi nolint admitti tale quid, indulgent autem, quasi uelint admitti; quando si admitti nolint, non debeant indulgere; si indulgere uelint, non debeant praecauere.

[18] They take precautions, indeed, as if they would not wish such a thing to be admitted; yet they indulge, as if they would wish it to be admitted; for if they would not wish it to be admitted, they ought not to indulge; if they would wish to indulge, they ought not to take precautions.

[19] Nec enim moechia et fornicatio de modicis et de maximis delictis deputabuntur, ut utrumque competat, et sollicitudo quae praecauet et securitas quae indulget. Sed cum ea sint quae culmen criminum teneant, non capiunt et indulgeri quasi modica et praecaueri quasi maxima.

[19] Nor

indeed will adultery and fornication be reckoned among minor and among major delicts, so that

both may befit, both the solicitude that takes precautions and the security that indulges. But

since they are such as hold the summit of crimes, they do not admit of both being indulged as if minor,

and being guarded against in advance as if major.

[20] Nobis autem maxima aut summa sic quoque praecauentur, dum nec secundas quidem post fidem nuptias permittitur nosse, nuptialibus et dotalibus, si forte, tabulis a moechiae et fornicationis opere diuersas, et ideo durissime nos infamantes Paracletum disciplinae enormitate digamos foris sistimus.

[20] But for us even the greatest or the highest are thus also forestalled, since we are not permitted to know even second marriages after the Faith, the nuptial and dotal tablets, if perchance, being documents different from the work of adultery and fornication, and therefore, most sternly—we, as defaming the Paraclete by the enormity of discipline—set digamists outside.

[21] Eundem limitem liminis moechis quoque et fornicatoribus figimus ieiunas pacis lacrimas profusuris nec amplius ab ecclesia quam publicationem dedecoris relaturis.

[21] We fix the same limit of the threshold also for adulterers and fornicators, who are to pour out the meager tears of peace, and to bring back from the Church nothing more than a publication of disgrace.

II.

[1] « Ceterum Deus, inquiunt,bonus et optimus et misericors et miserator et misericordiae plurimus, quam omni sacrificio anteponit, non tanti ducens peccatoris mortem quam paenitentiam, salutificator omnium hominum et maxime fidelium.

[1] « But God, they say,good and best and merciful and a pitier and most abundant in mercy, which he puts before every sacrifice, not counting the death of the sinner of so much worth as repentance, the Savior of all human beings and especially of the faithful.

[2] Itaque et filios Dei misericordes et pacificos esse oportebit, donantes inuicem sicut et Christus donauit nobis, non iudicantes, ne iudicemur.Domino enim suo stat quis uel cadit: tu quis es, ut seruum iudices alienum ? Dimitte, et dimittetur tibi. »

[2] And so also the sons of God ought to be merciful and pacific, forgiving one another just as Christ forgave us, not judging, lest we be judged.For to his own Lord each one stands or falls: who are you, that you judge another’s servant? Forgive, and it will be forgiven to you. »

[3] Talia et tanta sparsilia eorum, quibus et Deo adulantur et sibi lenocinantur, effeminantia magis quam uigorantia disciplinam, quantis et nos et contrariis possumus repercutere, quae et Dei seueritatem intentent et nostram constantiam prouocent?

[3] Such and so great are their sprinklings, with which they both flatter God and play the pander to themselves, effeminating rather than invigorating the discipline—by how many and by contraries can we also strike back, which both threaten God’s severity and provoke our constancy?

[4] Quia etsi bonus natura Deus, tamen et iustus. Ex causa enim, sicut sanare nouit, ita et caedere, faciens pacem, sed et condens mala, paenitentiam malens, sed et Hieremiae mandans, ne pro populo peccatore deprecaretur. Quod, etsi ieiunauerint, inquit, non exaudiam obsecrationem eorum.

[4] Because although God is good
by nature, yet also just. For with cause, just as he knows how to heal, so also to smite,
making peace, but also bringing calamities into being, preferring repentance, but also commanding Jeremiah
not to intercede for the sinful people. As to which, even if they fast, he says,
I will not hearken to their entreaty.

[5] Et rursus:Et tu ne adoraueris pro populo et ne postulaueris pro his in prece et oratione, quoniam non exaudiam in tempore, quo inuocauerint me, in tempore adflictionis suae.

[5] And again:And you, do not intercede for the people, and do not ask for them in supplication and oration, for I will not hearken at the time when they shall invoke me, at the time of their affliction.

[6] Et adhuc supra, idem misericordiae praelator quam sacrificii:Et tu ne adoraueris pro populo isto et ne postulaueris misericordiam consequi eos et ne accesseris pro bis ad me, quoniam non exaudiam utique misericordiam postulantes, utique ex paenitentia flentes et ieiunantes et adflictationem suam offerentes Deo.

[6] And further above, the same one, a preferrer of mercy rather than sacrifice:And do not you adore on behalf of this people, and do not ask that they obtain mercy, and do not approach for these to me, since I will not hear those asking for mercy at all, even though weeping from repentance and fasting and offering their affliction to God.

[7] Deus enim zelotes, et qui naso non deridetur, adulantium scilicet bonitati eius, et qui licet patiens, tamen per Esaiam comminatur patientiae finem: Tacui, numquid et semper tacebo et sustinebo? Quieui uelut parturiens, exsurgam et arescere faciam. Ignis enim procedet ante faciem ipsius, et exuret inimicos eius, non solum corpus, uerum et animas occidens in gehennam.

[7] For God is a jealous (zealot), and the one who is not sneered at by the nose, namely by those flattering his goodness, and who, though patient, nevertheless through Isaiah threatens an end to patience: I have kept silent; shall I indeed always keep silent and endure? I have been quiet like a woman in labor; I will rise up and I will make it dry up. For fire will go forth before his face, and it will burn up his enemies, slaying not only the body, but even souls, in Gehenna.

[8] Ceterum iudicantibus quomodo Dominus comminetur ipse demonstrat:Quo enim iudicio iudicaueritis, iudicabitur de uobis. Ita non prohibuit iudicare, sed docuit.

[8] Moreover to those judging how the Lord threatens, he himself demonstrates:For with what judgment you have judged, it will be judged concerning you. Thus he did not forbid judging, but taught.

[9] Vnde et apostolus iudicat et quidem in causa fornicationis, dedendum eiusmodi hominem satanae in interitum carnis, increpans etiam quod fratres non apud sanctos iudicarentur. Adiciens enim inquit:Vt quid mihi eos qui foris sunt iudicare?

[9] Whence also the apostle judges
and indeed in the case of fornication, that a man of such a sort is to be handed over to Satan for the destruction
of the flesh, rebuking also that the brethren were not judged before the saints. Adding,
indeed he says: For what is it to me to judge those who are outside?

[10] Dimittis autem, ut dimittatur tibi a Deo. Delicta mundantur, quae quis in fratrem, non Deum admiserit. Debitoribus denique dimissuros nos in oratione profitemur.

[10] You remit moreover, so that it may be remitted to you by God. Offenses are cleansed, which someone has committed against a brother, not against God. To debtors, finally, we profess in prayer that we will remit.

Sed non decet ultra de auctoritate scripturarum eiusmodi funem contentiosum alterno ductu in diuersa distendere, ut haec restringere frenos disciplinae, illa laxare uideantur, quasi incertae et paenitentiae subsidium illa prosternere per lenitatem, haec negare per austeritatem.

But it is not fitting, further, on the authority of the Scriptures, to stretch such a contentious rope
by an alternate drawing into diverse directions, so that these seem to restrain the reins of discipline,
those to loosen them, as though they were uncertain—and the subsidy of penitence those to prostrate
through leniency, these to deny through austerity.

[11] Porro si et auctoritas scripturae in suis terminis stabit sine alterutra oppositione, et paenitentiae subsidium suis condicionibus determinatur sine passiua concessione, et ipsae prius causae eius distinguuntur sine confusa propositione.

[11] Furthermore if both the authority of Scripture will stand within its own terms without opposition from either side, and the aid of penitence is determined by its own conditions without passive concession, and first its very causes are distinguished without a confused proposition.

[12] Causas paenitentiae delicta condicimus. Haec diuidimus in duos exitus. Alia erunt remissibilia, alia inremissibilia.

[12] We appoint delicts as the causes of penitence. We divide these into two outcomes. Some will be remissible, others irremissible.

Secundum quod nemini dubium est alia castigationem mereri, alia damnationem.

Accordingly, it is doubtful to no one that some merit castigation, others damnation.

[13] Omne delictum aut uenia dispungit aut poena, uenia ex castigatione, poena ex damnatione. De ista differentia iam et quasdam praemisimus altercationes scripturarum hinc retinentium hinc dimittentium delicta.

[13] Every delict is expunged either by pardon or by penalty, pardon from castigation, penalty from damnation. Concerning this difference we have already also set forth certain disputations of the Scriptures, on the one hand retaining, on the other remitting delicts.

[14] Sed et Iohannes docebit:Si quis scit fratrem suum delinquere delictum non ad mortem, postulabit et dabitur uita ei; quia non ad mortem delinquit, hoc erit remissibile. Est delictum ad mortem; non pro illo dico, ut quis postulet, hoc erit inremissibile.

[14] But and John also will teach:If anyone knows his brother to be committing a delict not unto death, he will petition and life will be given to him; because he does not commit unto death, this will be remissible. There is a delict unto death; I do not say about that, that anyone should petition, this will be irremissible.

[15] Ita ubi est postulationis , illic etiam remissionis; ubi nec postulationis, ibi aeque nec remissionis. Secundum hanc differentiam delictorum paenitentiae quoque condicio discriminatur.

[15] Thus
where there is a <ratio> of petition, there is there also of remission; where there is not
petition, there likewise is not remission. According to this difference of delicts,
the condition of penitence also is discriminated.

[16] Alia erit quae ueniam consequi possit, in delicto scilicet remissibili, alia quae consequi nullo modo possit, in delicto scilicet inremissibili. Et superest specialiter de moechiae et fornicationis statu examinare, in quam delictorum partem debeant redigi.

[16] One will be that which can obtain pardon, namely in a remissible delict, another which can in no way obtain it, namely in an irremissible delict. And it remains specifically to examine the status of adultery and fornication, into which part of delicts they ought to be assigned.

III.

[1] Sed prius decidam intercedentem ex diuerso responsionem ad eam paenitentiae speciem, quam cum maxime definimus uenia carere. « Si enim, inquiunt, aliqua paenitentia caret uenia, iam nec in totum agenda tibi est. Nihil enim agendum est frustra.

[1] But first I will decide the intervening response coming from the opposite side to that form of penitence, which we are just now defining to lack pardon. «For if, they say, some penitence lacks pardon, then not at all is it to be done by you. For nothing is to be done in vain.

[2] Porro frustra agetur paenitentia, si caret uenia. Omnis autem paenitentia agenda est. Ergo omnis ueniam consequatur, ne frustra agatur, quia non ent agenda, si frustra agatur.

[2] Furthermore penitence will be done in vain, if it lacks pardon. But every penitence is to be done. Therefore let every penitence obtain pardon, lest it be done in vain, because it is not to be done, if it is done in vain.

Porro frustra agitur, si uenia carebit. »

Moreover, it is done in vain, if it will lack pardon. »

[3] Merito itaque opponunt, quod huius quoque paenitentiae fructum, id est ueniam, in sua potestate usurpauerunt. Quantum enim ad illos, a quibus pacem humanam consequitur, . Quantum autem ad nos, qui solum Dominum meminimus delicta concedere, et utique mortalia, non frustra agetur.

[3] Deservedly therefore they object that the fruit of this penitence also, that is, pardon, into their own power they have usurped. For, as far as those from whom human peace is obtained are concerned, . But as for us, who remember that only the Lord grants forgiveness of sins, and assuredly the mortal ones, it will not be done in vain.

[4] Ad Dominum enim remissa et illi exinde prostrata, hoc ipso magis operabitur ueniam, quod eam a solo Deo exorat, quod delicto suo humanam pacem sufficere non credit, quod ecclesiae mauult erubescere quam communicare.

[4] For, referred to the Lord and thenceforth prostrate to him, by this very fact the penitent will work out pardon all the more, because she entreats it from God alone, because she does not believe human peace to suffice for her delict, because she prefers to blush before the church rather than to communicate.

[5] Adsistit enim pro foribus eius et de notae exemplo ceteros admonet et lacrimas fratrum sibi quoque aduocat et redit plus utique negotiata, compassionem scilicet quam communicationem. Et si pacem hic non metit, apud Dominum seminat.

[5] She stands indeed before its doors, and by the example of the mark she admonishes the others, and the tears of the brethren she also summons on her own behalf, and she returns having certainly negotiated more gain—compassion, namely, rather than communion. And if she does not reap peace here, with the Lord she sows.

[6] Nec amittit, sed praeparat fructum. Non uacabit ab emolumento, si non uacauerit ab officio. Ita nec paenitentia huiusmodi uana nec disciplina eiusmodi dura est.

[6] Nor
does she lose, but she prepares fruit. She will not be vacant of emolument, if she has not been vacant of
duty. Thus neither is penitence of this sort vain nor discipline of this sort harsh.

Deum ambae honorant. Illa nihil sibi blandiendo facilius impetrabit, ista nihil sibi adsumendo plenius adiuuabit.

Both honor God. That one will obtain nothing
for herself more easily by blandishment; this one will
aid herself nothing more fully by assuming to herself.

IV.

[1] Possumus igitur demandata paenitentiae distinctione ad ipsorum iam delictorum regredi censum, an ea sint, quae ueniam ab hominibus consequi possint. Inprimis quod moechiam et fornicationem nominamus, usus expostulat.

[1] We can therefore, the distinction of penance having been assigned, return to the reckoning of the sins themselves already, whether they are such as can obtain pardon from men. In the first place, as usage requires, that we name adultery and fornication.

[2] Habet et fides quorundam nominum familiaritatem. Ita in omni opusculo usum custodimus. Ceterum et si adulterium et si stuprum dixero, unum erit contaminatae carnis elogium.

[2] It has And the faith has a familiarity with certain names. Thus in every opuscule we keep the usage. Moreover, whether I say adultery or stupration, there will be one designation of contaminated flesh.

[3] Nec enim interest nuptam alienam an uiduam quis incurset, dum non suam feminam; sicut nec locis refert, in cubiculis an in turribus pudicitia trucidetur. Omne homicidium extra siluam latrocinium est.

[3] For it does not make a difference
whether someone assaults another man’s married woman or a widow, so long as it is not his own woman; just as neither
as to places does it matter, whether chastity is butchered in bedchambers or in towers. Every
homicide is brigandage even outside the forest.

[4] Ita et ubicumque uel in quacumque semetipsum adulterat et stuprat, qui aliter quam nuptiis utitur. Ideo penes nos occultae quoque coniunctiones, id est non prius apud ecclesiam professae, iuxta moechiam et fornicationem iudicari periclitantur, ne inde consertae obtentu matrimonii crimen eludant.

[4] Thus both wherever or in whatever way he adulterates and stuprates himself, who uses otherwise than by nuptials. Therefore among us even hidden unions, that is, not previously professed before the church, are in danger to be judged alongside adultery and fornication, lest, being joined from that source, under the pretext of matrimony they elude the charge.

[5] Reliquas autem libidinum furias impias et in corpora et in sexus ultra iura naturae non modo limine, uerum omni ecclesiae tecto submouemus, quia non sunt delicta, sed monstra.

[5] The remaining impious libidinous furies, against bodies and against sexes beyond the laws of nature, we remove not only from the threshold, but from every roof of the church, because they are not delicts, but monstrosities.

[1] Ergo moechia, quod etiam fornicationis est res secundum opus criminis, quanti aestimanda sit sceleris prima lex Dei praesto est. Siquidem post interdictam alienorum deorum superstitionem ipsorumque idolorum fabricationem, post commendatam sabbati uenerationem, post imperatam in parentes secundam a Deo religionem, nullum aliud in talibus titulis firmandis muniendisque substruxit praeceptum quamnon moechaberis.

[1] Therefore
adultery, which also is a matter of fornication according to the deed of the crime, how great
an atrocity it must be esteemed, the first law of God stands ready. For indeed, after the superstition
of alien gods and the fabrication of idols themselves was interdicted, after
the veneration of the sabbath was commended, after the second religion toward parents commanded by God,
he underbuilt no other precept for establishing and fortifying such titles
than you shall not commit adultery.

[2] Post spiritalem enim castitatem sanctitatemque corporalis sequebatur integritas. Et hanc itaque muniuit hostem statim eius prohibendo moechiam. Quale delictum iam intellege, cuius cohibitionem post idololatriam ordinauit.

[2] For after spiritual chastity, the integrity of bodily sanctity followed. And this therefore He fortified by forbidding at once its enemy, adultery. Understand now what sort of crime it is, whose cohibition He ordained after idolatry.

[3] Nihil secundum longinquat a primo. Nihil tam proximum primo quam secundum. Quod fit ex primo, aliud quodammodo primum est.

[3] Nothing second is far-removed from the first. Nothing is so proximate to the first as the second. What is made from the first is, in a certain manner, another first.

[4] Itaque moechia adfinis idololatriae — nam et idololatria moechiae nomine et fornicationis saepe populo exprobrata — etiam sorte coniungetur illi, sicut et serie; etiam damnatione cohaerebit illi, sicut et dispositione.

[4] Therefore adultery, affine to idolatry — for even idolatry under the name of adultery and fornication has often been reproached to the people — will also be joined with it by lot, as also by series; it will also cohere with it in condemnation, as also in disposition.

[5] Eo amplius praemittensnon moechaberis, adiungit non occides. Honorauit utique moechiam, quam homicidio anteponit, in prima itaque fronte sanctissimae legis, in primis titulis caelestis edicti, principalium utique delictorum proscriptione signatam. De loco modum, de ordine statum, de confinio meritum cuiusque dignoscas.

[5] So much the more by putting firstyou shall not commit adultery, he adds you shall not kill. He has indeed honored adultery, which he sets before homicide, thus on the very front of the most holy law, in the first titles of the celestial edict, assuredly marked by the proscription of principal crimes. From the place recognize the measure, from the order the standing, from the bordering the merit of each.

[6] Est et mali dignitas, quod in summo aut in medio pessimorum collocatur. Pompam quandam atque suggestum aspicio moechiae, hinc ducatum idololatriae antecedentis, hinc comitatum homicidii insequentis.

[6] There is also a dignity of evil, in that it is placed at the summit or in the midst of the worst. I behold for adultery a certain pomp and a platform, here the leadership of idolatry going before, there the retinue of homicide following.

[7] Inter duos apices facinorum eminentissimos sine dubio digna consedit, et per medium eorum quasi uacantem locum pari criminis auctoritate compleuit.

[7] Between the two most eminent apices of crimes she, without doubt, worthily took her seat, and through the middle of them, as though a place were vacant, she filled it with an equal authority of crime.

[8] Quis eam talibus lateribus inclusam, talibus costis circumfultam a cohaerentium corpore diuellet, de uicinorum criminum nexu, de propinquorum scelerum complexu, ut solam eam secernat ad paenitentiae fructum?

[8] Who
will tear her away, enclosed by such sides, shored up all around by such ribs, from the body of those that cohere,
from the nexus of neighboring crimes, from the embrace of kindred wickednesses,
so as to set her alone apart for the fruit of penitence?

[9] Nonne hinc idololatria, inde homicidium detinebunt et, si qua uox fuerit, reclamabunt: « Noster hic cuneus est, nostra compago? Ab idololatria metamur, illa distinguente coniungimur, illi de medio emicanti adunamur; concorporauit nos scriptura diuina, litterae ipsae glutina nostra sunt, iam nec ipsa sine nobis potest.

[9] Will not idolatry on this side, homicide on that, hold her fast, and, if there be any voice, will they cry out in protest: « This wedge is ours, this compage is ours. From idolatry we are meted; by that one, as it distinguishes, we are conjoined; to that one shooting forth from the midst we are adunated; the divine Scripture has concorporated us, the letters themselves are our glues; now not even it itself can do without us. »

[10] Ego quidem idololatria saepissime moechiae occasionem subministro. Sciunt luci mei et mei montes, et uiuae aquae ipsaque in urbibus templa quantum euertendae pudicitiae procurem.

[10] I, indeed, idolatry, very often supply an occasion for adultery. My groves and my mountains know, and the living waters and the very temples in the cities, how much I procure for the overturning of chastity.

[11] Ego quoque homicidium nonnumquam moechiae elaboro. Vt tragoedias omittam, sciunt hodie uenenarii, sciunt magi, quot pellicatus ulciscar, quot riualitates defendam, quot custodes, quot delatores, quot conscios auferam. Sciunt etiam obstetrices, quot adulteri conceptus trucidentur.

[11] I too sometimes work out homicide for adultery. To pass over tragedies, the poisoners know today, the magicians know, how many seductions I avenge, how many rivalries I defend,
how many guards, how many delators, how many accomplices I take away. The midwives also know
how many adulterous conceptions are slaughtered.

[12] Etiam apud Christianos non est moechia sine nobis. Ibidem sunt idololatriae, ubi immundi spiritus res est; ibidem est et homicidium, ubi homo, cum inquinatur, occiditur.

[12] Even among Christians there is no adultery without us. In the same places are idolatries, where the business of the unclean spirit is; in the same place there is also homicide, where the man, when he is defiled, is slain.

[13] Igitur aut nec illi aut etiam nobis paenitentiae subsidia conuenient. Aut detinemus eam, aut sequimur. »

[13] Therefore either
the aids of penitence will suit neither them nor even us. Either we detain her,
or we follow her. »

[14] Haec ipsae res loquuntur. Si res uoce deficiunt, adsistit idololatres, adsistit homicida, in medio eorum adsistit et moechus. Pariter de paenitentiae officio sedent, in sacco et cinere inhorrescunt, eodem fletu ingemiscunt, eisdem precibus ambiunt, eisdem genibus exorant, eandem inuocant matrem.

[14] These very things speak. If the facts fail of a voice, the idololater stands by, stands by the homicide; in the midst of them the adulterer also stands by. Alike, for the office of penitence they sit; in sackcloth and ashes they shudder, with the same weeping they groan, with the same prayers they beseech, with the same knees they implore, they invoke the same mother.

[15] Quid agis, mollissima et humanissima disciplina? Aut ommbus eis hoc esse debebis,beati enim pacifici, aut, si non omnibus, nostra esse. Idololatrem quidem et homicidam semel damnas, moechum uero de medio excipis?

[15] What

are you doing, most gentle and most humane discipline? Either you will have to be this for all of them, blessed
for peacemakers, or, if not for all, to be ours. Do you indeed condemn the idolater
and the homicide once for all, but take the adulterer out from the midst?

idololatrae successorem, homicidae antecessorem, utriusque collegam: personae acceptatio est; miserabiliores paenitentias reliquisti.

the idolater's successor, the homicide's predecessor, the colleague of both: it is an acceptance of persons; you have left behind more pitiable penances.

VI.

[1] Plane, si ostendas, de quibus patrociniis exemplorum praeceptorumque caelestium soli moechiae et in ea fornicationi quoque ianuam paenitentiae expandas, ad hanc iam lineam dimicabit nostra congressio. Praescribam tamen tibi formam necesse est, ne ad uetera manum emittas, ne in terga respicias.

[1] Plainly, if you show, by what advocacies of examples and of celestial precepts you open the door of penitence to adultery alone, and therein also to fornication, our encounter will now contend along this line. Yet I must prescribe to you a form, lest you put forth your hand to the old things, lest you look back.

[2] Vetera enim transierunt secundum Esaiam, et nouata est iam nouatio secundum Hieremiam, et obliti posteriorum in priora porrigimur secundum apostolum, et lex et prophetae usque ad Iohannem secundum Dominum.

[2] The old things
indeed have passed, according to Isaiah, and the renewal has now been renewed, according to Jeremiah,
and, forgetful of the things behind, we stretch forward to the things before, according to the apostle, and the Law and
the Prophets until John, according to the Lord.

[3] Nam et si cum maxime a lege coepimus demonstrando moechiam, merito ab eo statu legis, quem Christus non dissoluit, sed impleuit. Onera enim legis usque ad Iohannem, non remedia. Operum iuga reiecta sunt, non disciplinarum.

[3] For even if we have most especially begun from the law in demonstrating adultery, with good reason it is from that condition of the law which Christ did not dissolve but fulfilled. For the burdens of the law are up to John, not the remedies. The yokes of works have been cast off, not those of disciplines.

Libertas in Christo non fecit innocentiae iniuriam.

Liberty in Christ has not done injury to innocence.

[4] Manet lex tota pietatis sanctitatis humanitatis ueritatis castitatis iustitiae misericordiae beneuolentiae pudicitiae. In qua legebeatus uir qui meditabitur die ac nocte. De qua idem Dauid rursus: Lex Domini inuituperabilis, conuertens animas; iura Domini directa, oblectantia corda; praeceptum Domini longe lucens, inluminans oculos.

[4] The whole law of piety, sanctity, humanity, verity, chastity, justice, mercy, benevolence, pudicity remains. In which lawblessed is the man who will meditate day and night. Of which the same David again: The law of the Lord is irreproachable, converting souls; the laws of the Lord are straight, delighting hearts; the precept of the Lord, shining afar, enlightens the eyes.

[5] Sic et apostolus:Itaque lex quidem sancta est, et praeceptum sanctum et optimum ; utique: Non moechaberis. Sed et supra: Legem ergo euacuamus per fidem? Absit, sed legem sistimus, scilicet in his quae et nunc nouo testamento interdicta etiam cumulatiore praecepto prohibentur.

[5] Thus and the apostle as well:Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the precept holy and excellent; to wit: You shall not commit adultery. But also above: Therefore do we make void the law through faith? By no means, but we establish the law, namely in those things which even now in the New Testament, being interdicted, are also prohibited by a more cumulative precept.

[6] Pro «non moechaberis », « qui uiderit ad concupiscentiam, iam moechatus est in corde suo », et pro « non occides » « qui dixerit fratri suo Racha, reus erit gebennae ». Quaere, an salua sit lex non moechandi, cui accessit nec concupiscendi.

[6] For «you shall not commit adultery », « whoever has looked unto concupiscence, has already committed adultery in his heart », and for « you shall not kill » « whoever shall have said to his brother, Racha, will be liable to Gehenna ». Inquire whether the law of not committing adultery remains intact, to which there has been added not even to desire (concupiscence).

[7] Ceterum si qua uobis exempla in sinum plaudent, non opponentur huic quam defendimus disciplinae. Frustra enim lex suprastructa est, origines quoque delictorum id est concupiscentias et uoluntates non minus quam facta condemnans, si ideo hodie concedetur moechiae uenia, quia et aliquando concessa est.

[7] Moreover, if any examples fall into your lap, they will not be opposed to this discipline which we are defending. For in vain has the law been superadded, condemning the origins also of delicts, that is, concupiscences and volitions, no less than the deeds, if for this reason today pardon will be granted to adultery, because it too was once granted.

[8] Cui emolumento hodie pleniore disciplina coercetur, nisi ut maiore forsitan lenocinio tuo indulgeatur? Dabis ergo et idololatrae et omni apostatae ueniam, quia et populum ipsum totiens reum istorum totiens inuenimus retro restitutum.

[8] To what emolument is anything today restrained by a fuller discipline, unless perhaps that, by your greater lenocinium, it may be indulged? You will therefore give pardon also to the idololater and to every apostate, because we too so often find the people themselves, so often guilty of these things, restored back in former times.

[9] Communicabis et homicidae, quia et Nabothae sanguinem Achab deprecatione deleuit et Dauid Vriae caedem cum causa eius moechia confessione purgauit.

[9] You will hold communion

also with the homicide, since Ahab too wiped away Naboth’s blood by supplication, and David

purged the slaughter of Uriah, together with its cause, adultery, by confession.

[10] Iam et incesta donabis propter Loth et fornicationes cum incesto propter Iudam et turpes de prostitutione nuptias propter Osee, et non tantum frequentatas, uerum et simul plures, propter patres nostros.

[10] Now you will also grant pardon to incest on account of Lot, and fornications with incest on account of Judah, and shameful nuptials from prostitution on account of Hosea, and not only often-repeated, but even several at the same time, on account of our fathers.

[11] Vtique enim dignum est peraequari nunc quoque gratiam circa omnia retro indulta, si de pristino aliquo exemplo uenia moechiae uindicatur.

[11] Assuredly, indeed it is worthy that grace now also be equated with all indulgences formerly granted, if from some former example the pardon of adultery is vindicated.

[12] Habemus quidem et nos eiusdem uetustatis exempla pro sententia nostra, non modo non indulti, uerum etiam repraesentati iudicii fornicationis.

[12] We too have examples of the same antiquity in support of our opinion, not only not granted indulgence, but even of the judgment of fornication actually enforced.

[13] Et utique sufficit tantum numerum XXIV milium populi fornicantis in filias Madian una plaga ruisse.

[13] And assuredly it suffices that so great a number, 24,000, of the people fornicating with the daughters of Midian, fell by a single plague.

[14] Sed malo in gloriam Christi a Christo deducere disciplinam. Habuerint pristina tempora omnis impudicitiae, si uolunt psychici, etiam potestatem. Luserit ante Christum caro, immo perierit antequam a Domino suo requisita est: nondum erat digna dono salutis, nondum apta officio sanctitatis.

[14] But I prefer to derive discipline, to the glory of Christ, from Christ. Let former times have had, if the psychics wish it, even the power of all impudicity. Let the flesh have played before Christ—nay rather, let it have perished before it was required by its Lord: it was not yet worthy of the gift of salvation, not yet apt for the office of sanctity.

[15] Adhuc in Adam deputabatur cum suo uitio, facile quod speciosum uiderat concupiscens et ad inferiora respiciens et de ficulneis foliis pruriginem retinens. Inhaerebat usquequaque libidinis uirus et + lacteae sordes, non habentes, id onear quod nec ipsae adhuc aquae lauerant.

[15] Still

in Adam it was being reckoned with his own vice, easily concupiscent of what it had seen as fair and
looking down to lower things and retaining an itch from fig-tree leaves. There clung
everywhere the virus of libido and + milky dregs, not having what was fitting, since
not even the waters themselves had yet washed.

[16] At ubi sermo Dei descendit in carnem ne nuptiis quidem resignatam etsermo caro factus est ne nuptiis quidem resignanda, quae ad lignum non incontinentiae, sed tolerantiae accederet, quae non dulce aliquid, sed amarum inde gustaret, quae non ad inferos, sed ad caelum pertineret, quae non lasciuiae frondibus, sed sanctimoniae floribus praecingeretur, quae munditias suas aquis traderet, exinde caro quaecumque in Christo reliquas sordes pristinas soluit, alia iam res est, noua emergit, iam non ex seminis limo, non ex concupiscentiae fimo, sed ex aqua pura et spiritu mundo.

[16] But when the Word of God descended into flesh not even resigned to nuptials, andthe Word was made flesh not to be resigned to nuptials, which would approach the tree not of incontinence, but of endurance, which would taste not something sweet, but something bitter from there, which would pertain not to the underworld, but to heaven, which would be girded not with the leaves of lasciviousness, but with the flowers of sanctity, which would hand over its cleanliness to the waters, from then on flesh—whatever in Christ—loosens the remaining former filths; it is now another thing, a new thing emerges, now not from the mud of seed, not from the dung of concupiscence, but from pure water and a clean spirit.

[17] Quid itaque illam de pristino excusas? Non corpus Christi, non membra Christi, non templum Dei uocabatur, cum ueniam moechiae consequebatur.

[17] Why therefore do you excuse her from her former state? She was not called the body of Christ, not the members of Christ, not the temple of God, when she was obtaining pardon for adultery.

[18] Itaque si exinde, quo statum uertit, et in Christum tincta induit Christum et magno redempta est, sanguine scilicet Domini et agni, tenes aliquod exemplum siue praeceptum siue formam siue sententiam indultae siue indulgendae fornicationis atque moechiae habes etiam temporis a nobis definitionem, ex quo deputetur aetas quaestionis.

[18] Therefore if from that point, at which she changed her state, and, baptized into Christ, put on Christ and was redeemed at a great price, namely by the blood of the Lord and of the Lamb, do you hold any example or precept or form or opinion of fornication and adultery as having been granted indulgence or to be indulged? You have also from us a definition of the time, from which the season of inquiry is to be reckoned.

VII.

[1] A parabolis licebit incipias, ubi est ouis perdita a Domino requisita et humeris eius reuecta. Procedant ipsae picturae calicum uestrorum, si uel in illis perlucebit interpretatio pecudis illius, utrumne Christiano an ethnico peccatori de restitutione conliniet.

[1] From
the parables you may begin, where the lost sheep is sought by the Lord and on his shoulders
is carried back. Let the very pictures of your chalices come forward, if even in those
the interpretation of that sheep will shine through, whether it will delineate concerning restitution
for a Christian or for an ethnic (pagan) sinner.

[2] Praescribimus enim ex naturae disciplina, ex lege auris et linguae, ex mentis sanitate ea semper responderi quae prouocantur [id est ad ea quae prouocant]. Prouocauit, ut opinor, quod Pharisaei publicanos et peccatores ethnicos admittentem Dominum et cum illis de uictu communicantem indignati mussitabant.

[2] We prescribe
in fact from the discipline of nature, from the law of the ear and of the tongue, from the sanity of the mind, that those things
be always answered which are called forth [that is, to those things which do the provoking]. What provoked it, as
I think, was that the Pharisees were murmuring indignantly that the Lord, admitting publicans and gentile sinners,
and sharing in food with them.

[3] Ad hoc Dominum pecudis perditae restitutionem, cui alii configurasse credendum est quam ethnico perdito, de quo agebatur, non [de] Christiano, qui adhuc nemo? Aut quale est, ut Dominus quasi cauillator responsionis omissa specie praesenti, quam repercutere deberet, de futura laboret?

[3] To this, that the Lord’s restoration of the lost sheep—whom else is he to be believed to have configured than the lost ethnic, about whom the matter was, not of a Christian, who as yet was no one? Or what sort is it, that the Lord, as though a caviller, with the present form of the reply omitted, which he ought to have beaten back, should toil about a future one?

[4] Sed « ouis proprie Christianus et grex Domini ecclesiae populus et pastor bonus Christus et ideo Christianus in oue intellegendus, qui ab ecclesiae grege errauerit. »

[4] But « the sheep is properly the Christian, and the Lord’s flock is the people of the church, and the good shepherd is Christ; and therefore the Christian is to be understood in the sheep, who has strayed from the flock of the church. »

[5] Ergo nihil ad Pharisaeorum mussitationem respondisse uis Dominum, sed ad tuam praesumptionem? Et tamen ita eam uindicare debebis, ut neges in ethnicum competere, quae in Christianum existimas conuenire.

[5] Therefore, do you wish the Lord to have answered nothing to the muttering of the Pharisees, but to your presumption? And yet you will have to vindicate it in such a way as to deny that what you think to be fitting for a Christian is applicable to the ethnic (pagan).

[6] Dic mihi, nonne omne hominum genus unus Dei grex est? Nonne uniuersarum gentium idem Deus et Dominus et pastor est? Quis magis perit a Deo quam ethnicus, quamdiu errat?

[6] Tell me, is not the whole race of men one flock of God? Is not of all nations the same God and Lord and shepherd? Who perishes more from God than the pagan, so long as he errs?

Quis magis requiritur a Deo quam ethnicus, quando reuocatur a Christo?

Who is more sought after by God than the pagan, when he is called back by Christ?

[7] Denique antecedit hic ordo in ethnicis; siquidem non aliter Christiani ex ethnicis fiunt nisi prius perditi et a Deo requisiti et a Christo reportati. Ita etiam hunc ordinem seruari oportet, ut in eos tale aliquid interpretemur, in quibus prius.

[7] Finally this order comes first among the ethnics; since in no other way do Christians from the ethnics come to be except that first they are lost and sought out by God and brought back by Christ. Thus also this order ought to be observed, that we interpret something of this sort with respect to those, in whom previously.

[8] At tu, opinor, hoc uelis, ut ouem non de grege perditam faceret, sed de arca uel de armario. Sic etsi [ethnicorum] reliquum numerum iustum ait, non ideo Christianos esse ostendit, cum Iudaeis agens et illos cum maxime obtundens, quod indignarentur spei ethnicorum, sed ut exprimeret aduersus liuorem Pharisaeorum suam gratiam et beneuolentiam etiam circa unum ethnicum, praeposuit unius peccatoris salutem ex paenitentia quam illorum ex iustitia.

[8] But you, I suppose, would wish this,
that he make the sheep not lost from the flock, but from an ark or from an armoire. Thus
even if he says the remaining number of the [ethnics] is just, he does not therefore show them to be Christians,
dealing with the Jews and especially hammering at them, because they were indignant
at the hope of the ethnics, but in order to express, against the envy of the Pharisees, his grace and
benevolence even toward a single ethnic, he preferred the salvation of one sinner from
repentance to that of those from righteousness.

[9] Aut numquid non iusti Iudaei, et quibus paenitentia opus non esset habentibus gubernacula disciplinae et timoris instrumenta legem et prophetas? Posuit igitur illos in parabola, etsi non quales erant, sed quales esse debuerant, quo magis suffunderentur, aliis et non sibi paenitentiam audientes necessariam.

[9] Or are not the Jews just, and such as would have no need of repentance, having as the helm of discipline and the instruments of fear the Law and the Prophets? He set them, therefore, in the parable, though not such as they were, but such as they ought to have been, so that they might be the more suffused with shame, hearing repentance necessary for others and not for themselves.

[10] Proinde drachmae parabolam, ut ex eadem materia prouocatam, aeque in ethnicum interpretamur, etsi in domo amissam, quasi in ecclesia, etsi ad lucernae lumen repertam, quasi ad Dei uerbum.

[10] Accordingly the parable of the drachma, as called forth from the same subject-matter, we interpret equally with reference to the ethnic, although lost in the house, as if in the church, and although found by the lamp’s light, as if by the word of God.

[11] Atquin totus hic mundus una omnium domus est, in quo magis ethnico gratia Dei inlucet, qui in tenebris inuenitur, quam Christiano, qui iam in Dei luce est.

[11] And yet this whole world is the single house of all, in which the grace of God shines more upon the Gentile, who is found in darkness, than upon the Christian, who already is in the light of God.

[12] Denique et oui et drachmae unus error adscribitur. Nam si iam in Christianum peccatorem defingerentur post fidem perditum, et iterata amissione eorum et restitutione tractaretur.

[12] Finally

to both the sheep and the drachma one and the same error is ascribed. For if already they were being figured with reference to a Christian sinner
after faith had been lost, and concerning the repeated loss of them and
their restitution the discussion were held.

[13] Decedam nunc paulisper de gradu isto, quo magis eum etiam decedendo commendem, cum sic quoque obduxero diuersae partis praesumptionem. Condico Christianum iam peccatorem in parabola utraque portendi, non tamen ideo eum adfirmandum, qui de facinore moechiae et fornicationis restitui per paenitentiam possit.

[13] I will step down
now for a little while from this grade, that I may the more commend it even by stepping down, since thus
also I shall have overcast the presumption of the opposing party. I stipulate that a Christian already
a sinner is portended in each parable, yet not therefore is he to be affirmed who, from the crime of
adultery and fornication, can be restored by penitence.

[14] Licet enim perisse dicatur, erit et de perditionis genere retractare, quia et ouis non moriendo, sed errando et drachma non interiendo, sed latitando perierunt. Ita licet dici perisse, quod saluum est.

[14] Although indeed it may be said to have perished, there will also be a reconsideration of the kind of perdition, since both the sheep not by dying, but by straying, and the drachma not by perishing, but by lying hidden, have perished. Thus it is permitted to say “has perished” of what is safe.

[15] Perit igitur et fidelis elapsus in spectaculum quadrigarii furoris et gladiatorii cruoris et scaenicae foeditatis et xysticae uanitatis, in lusus, in conuiuia saecularis sollemnitatis, in officium, in ministerium alienae idololatriae aliquas artes adhibuit curiositatis in uerbum ancipitis negationis aut blasphemiae impegit.

[15] Therefore the faithful man too perishes, having lapsed into the spectacle of the charioteer’s fury and of gladiatorial gore and of stage foulness and of xystic vanity, into games, into convivial banquets of secular solemnity, on duty, in the ministry of another’s idolatry, he has applied some arts of curiosity, he has stumbled into the word of a two‑edged denial or of blasphemy.

[16] Ob tale quid extra gregem datus est uel et ipse forte ira, tumore, aemulatione, quod denique saepe fit, dedignatione castigationis abrupit. Debet requiri atque reuocari. Quod potest recuperari, non perit, nisi foris perseuerauerit.

[16] On account of such a thing he has been given over outside the flock, or even he himself perhaps, by anger, tumor (swelling/pride), emulation,
which, finally, often happens, by disdain of chastisement, has broken off. He ought to be sought out and called back.
What can be recuperated does not perish, unless he has persevered outside.

[17] Bene interpretaberis parabolam uiuentem adhuc reuocans peccatorem. Moechum uero et fornicatorem quis non mortuum statim admisso pronuntiabit? Quo ore mortuum restitues in gregem ex parabolae eius auctoritate, quae non mortuum pecus reuocat?

[17] You will interpret the parable well, recalling the sinner while he is still living. An adulterer indeed and a fornicator—who will not at once pronounce him dead, the deed being admitted? With what mouth will you restore the dead man into the flock on the authority of his parable, which does not call back a dead sheep?

[18] Denique si meministi prophetarum, cum pastores increpantur, puto Ezechielis est uox:Pastores, ecce lac deuoratis et lanis uestimini; quod forte est occidistis, quod infirmum est non curastis, quod comminutum est non ligastis, quod expulsum est non conuertistis, quod periit non requisistis.

[18] Finally if you remember the prophets, when the shepherds are rebuked, I think it is the voice of Ezekiel:Shepherds, behold, you devour milk and clothe yourselves with wools; what is strong you have slain, what is weak you have not cared for, what is crushed you have not bound up, what is driven out you have not brought back, what has perished you have not sought.

[19] Numquid et de mortuo exprobrat, quod non et illud in gregem reficere curauerint? Plane ingerit, quod perire oues fecerint et a bestiis agri comedi — neque possunt nec perire in mortem nec comedi, si relinquantur — non, ut perditae in mortem et comestae resumantur.

[19] Does he also reproach them about the dead man, that they did not take care to restore that one too into the flock? Clearly he lays to their charge that they have made the sheep perish and be eaten by the beasts of the field — nor can they either perish into death or be eaten, if they are left — not, that, once lost unto death and devoured, they should be taken up again.

[20] Iuxta drachmae quoque exemplum etiam intra domum Dei ecclesiam licet esse aliqua delicta pro ipsius drachmae modulo ac pondere mediocria, quae ibidem delitescentia mox ibidem et reperta statim ibidem cum gaudio emendationis transigantur.

[20] According to the example of the drachma as well
even within the house of God, the church, it is permitted that there be certain delicts, moderate according to the modulus and weight of that drachma itself, which, lying hidden there in the same place, soon there likewise found, immediately there are settled with the joy of emendation.

[21] Moechiae uero et fornicationis non drachma, sed talentum, quibus exquirendis non lucernae spiculo [lumine], sed totius solis lancea opus est.

[21] Adultery indeed and fornication are not a drachma, but a talent, for the searching out of which not the lamp’s pinpoint [light], but the spear of the whole sun is needed.

[22] Simul apparuit, statim homo de ecclesia expellitur nec illic manet nec gaudium confert repertrici ecclesiae, sed luctum nec congratulationem aduocat uicinarum sed contristationem proximarum fraternitatum.

[22] As soon as it has appeared, at once the man is expelled from the church, nor does he remain there nor does he confer joy upon the discovering church, but grief; nor does he call forth the congratulation of the neighboring ones, but the sorrow of the nearest fraternities.

[23] Commissa itaque etiam hac nostra cum illorum interpretatione eo magis in ethnicum spectabunt et ouis et drachmae argumenta, quanto nec in eius delicti Christianum competere possunt, propter quod in Christianum de diuersa parte coguntur.

[23] Once set side by side,
therefore, even our interpretation with theirs will look all the more toward the Gentile (the ethnic),
the arguments both of the sheep and of the drachma, inasmuch as they cannot in the case of that delict apply to the Christian,
on account of which they are compelled toward the Christian from a different quarter.

VIII.

[1] Sed enim plerosque interpretes parabolarum idem exitus decipit, quem in uestibus purpura oculandis saepissime euenire est. Cum putaueris recte conciliasse temperamenta colorum et credideris comparationes eorum inter se amasse, erudito mox utroque corpore et luminibus expressis errorem omnem traducta diuersitas euomet.

[1] But indeed most interpreters of parables are deceived by the same outcome which very often happens in garments when they are “eyed” with purple. When you shall have supposed that you have rightly reconciled the temperaments of the colors and have believed that their comparisons have agreed among themselves, soon, with both bodies instructed and the lights brought out, the carried-over diversity will vomit forth every error.

[2] Eadem itaque caligine circa filiorum quoque duorum parabolam quibusdam ad praesens concolorantibus figuris a uero lumine exorbitant eius comparationis quam parabolae materia praetexit.

[2] Therefore in the same darkness, also around the parable of the two sons, as certain figures for the present make it of like color, they stray from the true light of that comparison which the material of the parable has veiled.

[3] Duos enim populos in duobus filiis collocant, Iudaicum maiorem, Christianum minorem. Nec enim possunt exinde Christianum peccatorem in filio minore disponere ueniam consecuturum, nisi in maiore Iudaicum expresserint.

[3] Two peoples, indeed, they place in the two sons, the Judaic the greater, the Christian the lesser. For they cannot from that point arrange the Christian sinner in the younger son as to obtain pardon, unless in the elder they have expressed the Judaic.

[4] Porro si Iudaicum ostendero deficere a comparatione filii maioris, consequenter utique nec Christianus admittetur de configuratione filii minoris. Licet enim filius audiat et Iudaeus et maior, quia prior in adoptione, licet et Christiano reconciliationem Dei Patris inuideat, quod uel maxime diuersa pars carpit, sed non erit Iudaei dictum ad patrem:Ecce quot annis tibi seruio et praeceptum tuum numquam praeteriui.

[4] Moreover if I shall have shown the Judaic to fail from the comparison of the elder son, then consequently indeed neither will the Christian be admitted from the configuration of the younger son. For although “son” may be heard both as Jew and as elder, since he is prior in adoption, although he even envies the Christian the reconciliation of God the Father, which the opposing party most especially carps at, yet it will not be the Jew’s statement to the father:Behold, for how many years I have served you, and your precept I never transgressed.

[5] Quando enim non transgressor legis Iudaeus, aure audiens et non audiens, odio habens traducentem in portis et aspernamento sermonem sanctum? Sic nec patris ad Iudaeum erit uox:Tu semper mecum es, et omnia mea tua sunt.

[5] For when is the Jew not a transgressor of the law, hearing with the ear and not hearing, hating the reprover in the gates and holding the holy sermon in contempt? Thus neither will the voice of the father be to the Jew:You are always with me, and all my things are yours.

[6] Iudaei enim apostatae filii pronuntiantur, generati quidem et in altum elati, sed qui non computauerint Deum et qui dereliquerint Dominum et in iram prouocauerint sanctum Israelis.

[6] For the Jews are pronounced apostate sons, generated indeed and elevated on high, but who have not reckoned God, and who have deserted the Lord and have provoked to wrath the Holy One of Israel.

[7] Omnia plane Iudaeo concessa dicemus, cui etiam condicio gratior quaeque de gula erepta est, nedum ipsa terra paternae promissionis. Atque adeo non minus hodie Iudaeus quam minor filius prodacta substantia Dei in aliena regione mendicat seruiens usque adhuc principibus eius, id est saeculi huius.

[7] We will say that all things plainly have been conceded to the Jew, to whom even the more agreeable condition and whatever has been snatched from the gullet
has been granted, not to mention the very land of the paternal promise. And thus today the Jew no less than the younger son, with the substance of God squandered, begs in a foreign region, serving
even now its princes, that is, of this age.

[8] Quaerant igitur alium Christiani suum fratrem; Iudaeum enim parabola non recipit. Multo aptius Christianum maiori et Iudaeum minori filio adaequassent secundum fidei comparationem, si ordo utriusque populi ab utero Rebeccae designatus permitteret demutationem. Nisi quod et clausula refragaretur.

[8] Let them seek
therefore some other as their brother; for the parable does not admit the Jew. Far
more fittingly they would have equated the Christian with the elder and the Jew with the younger son, according to the comparison of faith,
if the order of each people designated from the womb of Rebecca would permit
a demutation. Except that even the clause would be in contradiction.

[9] Christianum enim de restitutione Iudaei gaudere et non dolere conueniet, siquidem tota spes nostra cum reliqua Israelis expectatione coniuncta est. Ita etsi quaedam facient, sed aliis contra sapientibus interimitur exemplorum peraequatio.

[9] for the Christian to rejoice over the restitution of the Jew and not to grieve will be fitting, since our whole hope is conjoined with the remaining expectation of Israel. Thus even if they will do certain things, yet, by others thinking contrariwise, the equalization of examples is destroyed.

[10] Quamquam, etsi omnia ad speculum respondere possint, unum sit praecipuum periculum interpretationum, ne aliorsum temperetur facilitas comparationum, quam quo parabolae cuiusque materia mandauit.

[10] Although, even if all things could correspond as in a mirror, there is one principal peril of interpretations: lest the facility of comparisons be tempered in another direction than that to which the subject-matter of each parable has mandated.

[11] Meminimus enim et histriones, cum allegoricos gestus adcommodant canticis, alia longe a praesenti et fabula et scaena et persona et tamen congruentissime exprimentes. Sed uiderit ingenium extraordinarium. Nihil enim ad Andromacham.

[11] We remember indeed that even actors, when they adapt allegorical gestures to songs, express other things far removed from the present plot and stage and persona, and yet most congruently. But let extraordinary genius look to that. For it has nothing to do with Andromache.

[12] Sic et haeretici easdem parabolas quo uolunt tribuunt, non quo debent. Aptissime excludunt. Quare aptissime?

[12] Thus even the heretics ascribe the same parables where they wish, not where they ought. Most aptly they exclude. Why most aptly?

Quoniam a primordio secundum occasiones parabolarum ipsas materias confinxerunt doctrinarum. Vacuit scilicet illis solutis a regula ueritatis ea conquirere atque componere, quorum parabolae uidentur.

Since from the beginning they have, according to the occasions of the parables,
fabricated the very materials of doctrines. Plainly, being loosed from the rule of truth,
it was free to them to seek out and compose those things which the parables seem to be about.

IX.

[1] Nos autem quia non ex parabolis materias commentamur, sed ex materiis parabolas interpretamur, nec ualde laboramus omnia in expositione torquere, dum contraria quaeque caueamus.

[1] We,

however, since we do not concoct materials from parables, but interpret parables
from the materials, nor do we greatly labor to torture everything in the exposition,
provided that we beware whatever things are contrary.

[2] Quare centum oues? Et quid utique decem drachmae? Et quae illae scopae?

[2] Why one hundred sheep? And what, indeed, are the ten drachmas? And what are those brooms?

Necesse erat, qui unius peccatoris salutem gratissimam Deo uolebat exprimere, aliquam numeri quantitatem nominaret, de quo unum quidem perisse describeret; necesse erat, ut habitus requirentis drachmam in domo tam scoparum quam lucernae adminiculo adcommodaretur.

It was necessary,
for him who wished to express that the salvation of one sinner is most pleasing to God, to name some
quantity of number, of which he would describe that one indeed had perished; it was necessary
that the apparatus of the one seeking the drachma in the house be accommodated with the aid of both brooms and a lamp
as a support.

[3] Huiusmodi enim curiositates et suspecta faciunt quaedam et coactarum expositionum subtilitate plerumque deducunt a ueritate. Sunt autem, quae et simpliciter posita sunt ad struendam et disponendam et texendam parabolam, ut illuc perducantur, cui exemplum procuratur.

[3] Of this kind for curiosities make certain things suspect, and by the subtlety of forced expositions they for the most part lead away from the truth. There are, moreover, those which are set simply for the building up and arranging and weaving of the parable, so that they may be brought to that point to which the example is being provided.

[4] Et duo utique filii illuc spectabunt, quo et drachma et ouis. Quibus enim cohaerent, eandem habent causam, eandem utique mussitationem Pharisaeorum erga commercium Domini ethnicorum.

[4] And the two sons will assuredly point thither, whither both the drachma and the sheep. For, since they cohere with these, they have the same cause, indeed the same murmuring of the Pharisees toward the Lord’s commerce with the Gentiles.

[5] Aut si quis dubitat ethnicos fuisse publicanos apud Iudaeam usurpatam iam pridem Pompeii manu atque Luculli, legat Deuteronomium:Non erit uectigal pendens ex filiis Israel.

[5] Or
if anyone doubts that the publicans were Gentiles in Judea, long since usurped
by the hand of Pompey and of Lucullus, let him read Deuteronomy: There shall not be a tribute exacted
from the sons of Israel.

[6] Nec tam execrabile esset nomen publicanorum apud Dominum, nisi extraneum, uendentium ipsius caeli et terrae et maris transitus. Peccatores autem cum adiungit publicanis, non statim Iudaeos ostendit, etsi aliqui fuisse potuerunt.

[6] Nor would the name of the publicans be so execrable with the Lord, unless it were alien, of those selling the transits of heaven itself and of earth and of sea. But when he joins sinners to the publicans, he does not straightway indicate Jews, although some could have been.

[7] Sed unum genus ethnicorum alios ex officio peccatores id est publicanos, alios ex natura id est non publicanos, pariter ponendo distinxit. Ceterum nec denotaretur cum Iudaeis communicans uictum, sed cum ethnicis, quorum mensam Iudaica disciplina depellit.

[7] But by setting side by side one kind of the ethnics, some sinners from office, that is, publicans, others from nature, that is, non-publicans, he distinguished them equally. Moreover, neither would he be denoted as sharing food with the Jews, but with ethnics, whose table Jewish discipline drives away.

[8] Nunc de filio prodigo id prius considerandum est quod utilius. Non enim admittetur exemplorum adaequatio, licet in agina congruentissima, si fuerit saluti nocentissima. Totum autem statum salutis in tenore disciplinae constitutum subuerti uidemus ea interpretatione, quae ex diuerso adfectatur.

[8] Now about the prodigal son, that must first be considered which is more useful. For the adequation of examples will not be admitted of examples, although in the most congruent image, if it should be to salvation most noxious. But we see the whole state of salvation, established in the tenor of discipline, being subverted by that interpretation which is aimed at from the opposite.

[9] Nam si Christianus est qui acceptam a Deo patre substantiam utique baptismatis, utique Spiritus sancti et exinde spei aeternae longe euagatus a patre prodigit ethnice uiuens, si exutus bonis mentis etiam principi saeculi (cui alii quam diabolo?) seruitium suum tradidit et ab eo porcis alendis, immundis scilicet spiritibus curandis praepositus resipuit ad patrem reuerti, iam non moechi et fornicarii, sed idololatrae et blasphemi et negatores et omne apostatarum genus hac parabola patri satisfacient, et elisa est uerissime hoc magis modo tota substantia sacramenti.

[9] For if he is a Christian who, having received from God the Father the substance—namely, of baptism, namely, of the Holy Spirit, and from that of eternal hope—has wandered far from the Father and squanders it, living as a pagan, if, stripped of the goods of the mind, he has even handed over his service to the prince of this age (to whom other than the devil?) and by him was appointed to feed the swine, that is to say to tend unclean spirits, and came to his senses to return to the Father, then not adulterers and fornicators, but idololaters and blasphemers and deniers and every genus of apostates will by this parable satisfy the Father; and the whole substance of the sacrament is most truly crushed in this way all the more.

[10] Quis enim timebit prodigere, quod habebit postea recuperare? Quis curabit perpetuo conseruare, quod non perpetuo poterit amittere? Securitas delicti etiam libido est eius.

[10] Who indeed will fear to squander what he will have afterward to recover? Who will care to conserve perpetually what he will not be able to lose perpetually? The security of the delict is even its libido is its.

[11] Recuperabit igitur et apostata uestem priorem, indumentum Spiritus sancti, et anulum denuo, signaculum lauacri, et rursus illi mactabitur Christus, et recumbet eo in toro, de quo indigne uestiti a tortoribus solent tolli et abici in tenebras, nedum spoliati. Plus est igitur, si nec expedit in Christianum conuenire ordinem filii prodigi.

[11] He will recover, then, even the apostate, the former garment, the vestment of the Holy Spirit, and the ring anew, the signet of the laver, and Christ will again be sacrificed for him, and he will recline on that couch,
from which those unworthily clothed are accustomed by the torturers to be taken up and cast into the darkness, to say nothing of those stripped bare. All the more, therefore, if it is not expedient that the order of the Prodigal Son should fit a Christian.

[12] Quod si nec in Iudaeum integre filii imago concurrit, ad propositum Domini simpliciter interpretatio gubernabitur. Venerat Dominus utique, ut quod perierat saluum faceret, medicus languentibus magis quam sanis necessarius.

[12] But if not even in
the Jew does the image of the son fully converge, the interpretation will be steered simply toward the Lord’s purpose.
The Lord had indeed come, to make safe what had perished—
a physician necessary for the languishing rather than for the sound.

[13] Hoc et in parabolis figurabat et in sententiis praedicabat. Quis perit hominum, quis labat de ualetudine, nisi qui Deum nescit? Quis saluus ac sanus, nisi qui Deum nouit?

[13] This
he both was prefiguring in parables and proclaiming in sentences. Who perishes of men, who
wavers in health, if not the one who does not know God? Who is safe and sound, if not the one who
knows God?

Has duas species de genere fraternas haec quoque signabit parabola.

This parable also will signify these two fraternal species of the genus.

[14] Vide an habeat ethnicus substantiam in Deo patre census et sapientiae et naturalis agnitionis in Deum, per quam et apostolus notat in sapientia Dei non cognouisse mundum per sapientiam Deum, quam utique a Deo acceperat.

[14] See whether the ethnic has substance with God the Father—an accounting both of wisdom and of natural recognition toward God, through which also the Apostle notes that in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, which indeed it had received from God.

[15] Hanc itaque prodegit longe a Domino moribus iactus inter errores et inlecebras et libidines saeculi, ubi fame ueritatis compulsus tradidit se principi huius aeui. Ille eum praefecit porcis (ut familiare id daemonum pecus pasceret), ubinec illi compos esset uitalis esca simulque alios uideret in opere diuino abundantes pane caelesti.

[15] This
therefore he squandered far from the Lord, tossed in his ways amid the errors and allurements and
lusts of the age, where, compelled by a hunger for truth, he handed himself over to the prince of this age.
He appointed him over the swine (that he might feed that familiar herd of the demons), where
he was not in possession of vital food, and at the same time he saw others in the divine work abounding with
celestial bread.

[16] Recordatur patris Dei, satisfacto redit, uestem pristinam recipit, statum scilicet eum, quem Adam transgressus amiserat. Anulum quoque accipit tunc primum, quo fidei pactionem interrogatus obsignat, atque ita exinde opimitate dominici corporis uescitur, eucharistia scilicet.

[16] He recalls God the Father; satisfaction having been made, he returns; he receives the pristine garment, that status, namely, which Adam, having transgressed, had lost. He also receives the ring then for the first time, with which of faith the paction, being questioned, he seals; and thus from then on with the opulence of the Lord’s body he feeds, namely, on the Eucharist.

[17] Hic erit prodigus filius, qui numquam retro frugi, qui statim prodigus, quod non statim Christianus. Hunc et Pharisaei de saeculo ad patris complexus reuertentem in publicanis et peccatoribus maerebant.

[17] This will be the prodigal son, who never before was frugal, who immediately was prodigal, because not immediately a Christian. Him too the Pharisees were lamenting, returning from the world to the father's embraces, among the publicans and sinners.

[18] Et ideo ad hoc solum maioris fratris adcommodatus est liuor, non quia innocentes et Deo obsequentes Iudaei, sed quia inuidentes nationibus salutem, plane quos semper apud patrem esse oportuerat.

[18] And therefore to this alone was the envy of the elder brother accommodated, not because innocent and obedient to God were the Jews, but because envious of salvation for the nations, plainly those who ought always to have been with the father.

[19] Et utique Iudaeus ad primam statim uocationem Christiani gemit, non ad secundam restitutionem. Illa enim etiam ethnicis relucet, haec uero quae in ecclesiis agitur ne Iudaeis quidem nota est.

[19] And

surely the Jew groans at the very first calling of the Christian, not at the second
restitution. For that indeed even shines to the ethnics, but this which is transacted in the churches
is not even known to the Jews.

[20] Puto me et materiae parabolarum et congruentiae rerum et tutelae disciplinarum adcommodatiores interpretationes reddidisse. Ceterum si in hoc gestit diuersa pars ouem et drachmam et filii luxuriam Christiano peccatori configurare, ut moechiam et fornicationem paenitentia donent, aut et cetera delicta pariter capitalia concedi oportebit aut paria quoque eorum moechiam et fornicationem inconcessibilia seruari.

[20] I think that I have rendered interpretations more accommodative to the material of the parables, to the congruence of the things, and to the tutelage of the disciplines. Moreover, if in this the opposing party is eager to configure the sheep and the drachma and the son’s luxury to the Christian sinner, so that adultery and fornication may be granted by penitence, either it will be necessary that the other sins likewise capital be conceded, or that their equals—adultery and fornication—also be kept as unconcedable.

[21] Sed plus est, quod nihil aliud argumentari licet citra id de quo agebatur. Denique si aliorsum parabolas transducere liceret, ad martyrium potius dirigeremus spem illarum, quod solum omni substantia prodacta restituere filium poterit et drachmam inter omnia licet in stercore repertam cum gaudio praedicabit, et ouem per aspera quaeque et abrupta fugitiuam humeris ipsius Domini in gregem referet.

[21] But moreover, nothing else is permitted to be argued apart from the matter at issue. Finally, if it were allowed to transfer the parables in another direction, we would rather direct their hope to martyrdom, which alone, with all substance expended, will be able to restore the son; and it will proclaim the drachma with joy among all things, although found in filth; and the sheep, a fugitive through every rough and steep place, it will carry back on the shoulders of the Lord himself into the flock.

[22] Sed malumus in scripturis minus, si forte, sapere quam contra. Proinde sensum Domini custodire debemus atque praeceptum. Non est leuior transgressio in interpretatione quam in conuersatione.

[22] But we would rather, in
the Scriptures, be less, if perhaps, wise than contrary. Accordingly we ought to guard the Lord’s sense
and precept. The transgression is no lighter in interpretation than in
conduct.

10.

[1] Excusso igitur iugo in ethnicum disserendi parabolas istas et semel dispecta uel recepta necessitate non aliter interpretandi quam materia propositi est, contendunt iam nec competere ethnicis paenitentiae denuntiationem, quorum delicta obnoxia ei non sint, ignorantiae scilicet imputanda, quam sola natura ream Deo faciat,

[1] With the yoke, then, shaken off for discussing these parables in an ethnic sense, and once the necessity of not interpreting otherwise than the subject-matter of the proposition requires has been either despised or received, they now maintain that the denunciation of repentance does not even befit the ethnics, whose offenses are not liable to it, being, namely, to be imputed to ignorance, which nature alone makes guilty before God,

[2] Porro nec remedia sapere quibus pericula ipsa non sapiant, illic autem paenitentiae constare rationem ubi conscientia et uoluntate delinquitur, ubi et culpa sapiat et gratia, illum lugere, illum uolutari, qui sciat et quid amiserit et quid sit recuperaturus, si paenitentiam Deo immolarit, utique eam magis filiis offerenti quam extraneis.

[2] Moreover nor to savor the remedies they for whom the dangers themselves do not savor, but that the rationale of penitence stands there where one transgresses with conscience and will, where both culpability and grace savor, let that man mourn, let that man wallow, who knows both what he has lost and what he is about to recuperate, if he shall have immolated penitence to God—who assuredly proffers it more to sons than to outsiders.

[3] Num ergo et Ionas idcirco ethnicis Niniuitis non putabat paenitentiam necessariam, cum cauillaretur in praedicationis officio, an potius misericordiam Dei prouidens etiam in extraneos profusam quasi destructuram praeconium uerebatur?

[3] Was it then that Jonah for that reason thought repentance not necessary for the Gentile Ninevites, when he caviled in the office of preaching, or rather, foreseeing the mercy of God poured forth even upon outsiders as if to destroy his proclamation, did he fear it?

[4] Atque adeo propter ciuitatem profanam, nondum Dei compotem, adhuc ignorantia delinquentem, paene periit prophetes? Nisi quod exemplum passus est dominicae passionis ethnicos quoque paenitentes redempturae.

[4] And indeed

on account of a profane city, not yet a partaker of God, still delinquent

through ignorance, did the prophet nearly perish? Except that he suffered the example of the Lord’s

Passion, destined to redeem even the Gentiles who repent.

[5] Bene quod et Iohannes Domini uias sternens non minus militantibus et publicanis quam filiis Abraham paenitentiae erat praeco. Ipse Dominus Sidoniis et Tyriis praesumpsit paenitentiam, si uirtutum documenta uidissent.

[5] Well that John too, paving the Lord’s ways, was a herald of repentance no less to soldiers and publicans than to the sons of Abraham. The Lord himself for the Sidonians and Tyrians presumed repentance, if they had seen the proofs of the virtues.

[6] Atquin ego illam naturalibus magis peccatoribus competere contendam quam uoluntariis. Magis enim merebitur fructum eius qui nondum eo usus est quam qui iam et abusus est, magisque sapient remedia prima quam exoleta.

[6] And yet

I will contend that it is more fitting for natural sinners than for voluntary ones.

For he will more merit its fruit who has not yet used it than he who has already even abused it, and will more savor the first remedies than the worn-out.

[7] Nimirum Dominus ingratis benignus magis quam ignaris et citius reprobatis misericors quam nondum probatis, ut non magis irascatur contumeliis clementiae suae quam blandiatur, et non libentius extraneis eam impertiat quam in filiis perdidit, cum gentes sic adoptauerit, dum Iudaei de patientia ludunt.

[7] Surely the Lord is kindly to the ungrateful rather than to the ignorant, and more swiftly merciful to the reprobate than to the not-yet-approved, so that he is not more angered by the affronts to his clemency than he is gentle, and he does not more willingly impart it to strangers than he lost it among sons, since he thus adopted the nations, while the Jews make sport of his patience.

[8] Sed hoc uolunt psychici, ut Deus iusti iudex eius peccatoris paenitentiam malit quam mortem qui mortem paenitentia maluit. Quod si ita est, peccando promeremur.

[8] But
this is what the psychics want, that God, a just judge, would prefer the repentance of that sinner rather than
death—the one who preferred death to repentance. But if it is so, by sinning we merit.

[9] « Age tu funambule pudicitiae et castitatis et omnis circa sexum sanctitatis, qui tenuissimum filum disciplinae eiusmodi ueri a uere uia pendente uestigio ingrederis, carnem spiritu librans, animam fide moderans, oculum metu temperans.

[9] « Come now, you tightrope-walker of pudicity and chastity and of all sanctity concerning sex, who advance upon the thinnest thread of a discipline of this sort, of truth, with your footstep hanging from the true way, balancing the flesh by the spirit, governing the soul by faith, tempering the eye by fear.

[10] Quid itaque in gradu totus es? Perges ne, si potueris, si uolueris, dum tamen securus et quasi in solido es. Nam si qua te carnis uacillatio, animi auocatio, oculi euagatio de tenore decusserit, Deus bonus est.

[10] Why then are you wholly on the step?
Will you go on, if you can, if you will, provided, however, that you are safe and, as it were, on
solid ground. For if any vacillation of the flesh, distraction of the mind, evagation of the eye has shaken you off from your
tenor, God is good.

[11] Suis, non ethnicis, sinum subicit; secunda te paenitentia excipiet; eris iterum de moecho Christianus. » Haec tu mihi benignissime Dei interpres.

[11] To her own, not to the Gentiles, she opens her bosom; second penitence will receive you; you will again be from an adulterer a Christian. » These things you say to me, most kindly interpreter of God.

[12] Sed cederem tibi, si scriptura « Pastoris », quae sola moechos amat, diuino instrumento meruisset incidi, si non ab omni concilio ecclesiarum, etiam uestrarum, inter apocrypha et falsa iudicaretur, adultera et ipsa et inde patrona sociorum, a qua et alias initiaris, cui ille, si forte, patrocinabitur pastor, quem in calice depingis, prostitutorem et ipsum Christiani sacramenti, merito et ebrietatis idolum et moechiae asylum post calicem subsecuturae, de quo nihil libentius bibas quam ouem paenitentiae secundae.

[12] But
I would yield to you, if the scripture «Shepherd», which alone loves adulterers, had deserved to be incised into the divine
instrument, if it were not judged by the universal council of the churches, even
of yours, among apocrypha and false things—an adulteress herself and from that the
patroness of accomplices—by which you are also initiated to others as well; to which that shepherd, perhaps, will give patronage,
whom you paint on the chalice, a prostitutor even of the Christian sacrament
itself, deservedly both an idol of drunkenness and an asylum of adultery to follow after the cup, from which
you would drink nothing more willingly than the sheep of second penitence.

[13] At ego eius pastoris scripturam haurio, qui non potest frangi. Hanc mihi statim Iohannes offert cum paenitentiae lauacro et officio dicentem:Facite dignos paenitentiae fructus, et ne dixeritis, patrem habemus Abraham (ne scilicet rursum blandimenta delinquentiae de patrum resumerent gratia): Potest enim Deus de lapidibus istis filios suscitare Abrahae.

[13] But I drink in the scripture of that shepherd, who cannot be broken. This John immediately offers to me, together with the laver of repentance and the office, saying:Make fruits worthy of repentance, and do not say, we have Abraham as father (lest, of course, they should again take up the blandishments of delinquency from the grace of the fathers): For God can from these stones raise up sons to Abraham.

[14] Sic et nos sequitur, ut eos, qui hactenus delinquant, facientes dignum paenitentiae fructum. Quid enim ex paenitentia maturescit quam emendationis effectus? Sed et si uenia potius est paenitentiae fructus, hanc quoque consistere non licet sine cessatione delicti.

[14] Thus

for us too it follows, that those who until now have been delinquent, producing a worthy fruit of penitence

fruit. For what matures from penitence except the effect of emendation? But even

if pardon rather is the fruit of penitence, this too is not permitted to subsist without

cessation of the delict.

Ita cessatio delicti radix est ueniae, ut uenia sit paenitentiae fructus.

Thus the cessation of the delict is the root of pardon, so that pardon is the fruit of penitence.

XI.

11.

[1] Exinde quod ad euangelium pertinet, parabolarum quidem discussa iam quaestio est. Si uero et factis aliquid tale pro peccatoribus edidit Dominus, ut cum peccatrici feminae etiam corporis sui contactum permittit lauanti lacrimis pedes eius et crinibus detergenti et unguento sepulturam ipsius inauguranti, ut cum Samaritanae sexto iam matrimonio non moechae, sed prostitutae, etiam quod nemini facile, quis esset ostendit, nihil ex hoc aduersariis confertur, et si iam Christianis ueniam delictorum praestitisset.

[1] Thereupon as pertains to the gospel, the question of the parables has indeed already been discussed. If however also by deeds the Lord put forth something of the sort on behalf of sinners, as when to a sinful woman he even permits the contact of his own body, as she washes with tears his feet and wipes them with her hair and inaugurates his burial with unguent, as when to the Samaritan woman, already in a sixth marriage—not an adulteress, but a prostitute—he also, what he does to no one easily, showed who he was, nothing from this is contributed to the adversaries, even if already he had afforded to Christians the pardon of sins.

[2] Nunc enim dicimus, soli Domino hoc licet, hodie potestas indulgentiae eius operetur. Ad illa tamen tempora, quibus in terris egit, hoc definimus nihil aduersum nos praeiudicare, si peccatoribus etiam Iudaeis uenia conferebatur.

[2] Now for indeed we say, this is permitted to the Lord alone; today let the power of his indulgence operate. Yet as to those times in which he acted on earth, we define this: that nothing prejudices us if pardon was being conferred upon sinners, even upon Jews.

[3] Christiana enim disciplina a nouatione testamenti et, ut praemisimus, a redemptione carnis id est Domini passione censetur. Nemo perfectus ante repertum ordinem fidei, nemo Christianus ante Christum caelo resumptum, nemo sanctus ante Spiritum sanctum de caelo repraesentatum ipsius disciplinae determinatorem.

[3] For Christian

discipline is reckoned from the novation of the testament and, as we have premised, from the redemption of the flesh,

that is, from the Lord’s passion. No one is perfect before the order of faith was found,

no one a Christian before Christ was taken back up into heaven, no one holy before the Holy

Spirit was re-presented from heaven, the determinator of that very discipline.

XII.

12.

[1] Itaque isti qui alium Paracletum in apostolis et per apostolos receperunt, quem nec in prophetis propriis agnitum iam nec in apostolis possident, age nunc uel de apostolico instrumento doceant maculas carnis post baptisma respersae paenitentia dilui posse.

[1] Therefore, those who have received another Paraclete in the apostles and through the apostles, whom they now neither have recognized in their own prophets nor possess in the apostles, come now, let them at least from the apostolic instrument teach that the stains of the flesh, bespattered after baptism, can be washed away by penitence.

[2] Nos in apostolis quoque ueteris legis forma soluta cernimus moechiae quanta sit demonstrationem, ne forte lenior existimetur in nouitate disciplinarum quam in uetustate.

[2] We also in the apostles, with the form of the old law loosened, discern a demonstration of how great adultery is lest perhaps it be considered more lenient in the novelty of the disciplines than in antiquity.

[3] Cum primum intonuit euangelium et uetera concussit, ut de legis retinendae necessitate disceptaretur, primum hanc regulam de auctoritate Spiritus sancti apostoli emittunt ad eos qui iam ex nationibus allegi coeperant.

[3] As soon as
the gospel thundered forth and shook the old things, so that there was debate about the necessity of retaining the law,
first the apostles, by the authority of the Holy Spirit, send forth this rule
to those who had already begun to be gathered from the nations (the Gentiles).

[4]Visum est, inquiunt, Spiritui sancto et nobis nullum amplius uobis adicere pondus quam eorum a quibus necesse est abstineri, a sacrificiis et a fornicationibus et sanguine. A quibus obseruando recte agetis uetante uos Spiritu sancto.

[4]It seemed good, they say, to the Holy Spirit and to us to add no further burden to you than those things from which it is necessary to abstain, from sacrifices and from fornications and from blood. By observing which you will act rightly, the Holy Spirit forbidding .

[5] Sufficit et hic seruatum esse moechiae et fornicationi locum honoris sui inter idololatriam et homicidium. Interdictum enim sanguinis multo magis humani intellegemus.

[5] It suffices also here that there has been preserved for adultery and fornication a place of their own honor among idolatry and homicide. For the interdict of blood we shall understand to concern, much more, human blood.

[6] Porro qualia uideri uolunt apostoli crimina, quae sola in obseruatione de lege pristina excerpunt, quae sola necessario abstinenda praescribunt? Non quod alia permittant, sed quod haec sola praeponant utique non remissibilia, qui ethnicorum causa cetera legis onera remissibilia fecerunt.

[6] Furthermore of what kind do the apostles wish the crimes to seem, which alone they excerpt in the observance from the pristine law, which alone they prescribe as necessarily to be abstained from? Not that they permit the others, but that they set these alone before as assuredly not remissible, they who for the sake of the Gentiles made the remaining burdens of the law remissible.

[7] Cur ergo ceruicem nostram a tanto iugo excusant, nisi ut illi compendia ista disciplinae semper imponant? Cur tot uincula indulgent, nisi ut perpetuo ad necessariora constringant?

[7] Why therefore do they excuse our neck from so great a yoke, unless so that they may always impose those compendia of discipline? Why do they relax so many bonds, unless to constrain us perpetually to the more necessary things?

[8] Soluerunt a pluribus, ut nocentioribus obseruandis obligaremur. Compensatione res acta est. Lucrati sumus multa, ut aliqua praestemus.

[8] They released us from more things, so that we might be bound to the observance of the more noxious ones. By compensation the matter was transacted. We have gained many things, that we might render some.

Compensatio autem reuocabilis non est, nisi denique reuocabitur iteratione moechiae utique et sanguinis et idololatriae.

But compensation, however, is not revocable, unless at last it will be revoked by a repetition of adultery, assuredly, and of bloodshed and of idololatry.

[9] Tota enim iam lex sumetur, si ueniae condicio soluetur. Sed non leuiter nobiscum pactus est Spiritus sanctus, etiam ultro pactus, quo magis honorandus. Sponsionem eius nemo dissoluet nisi ingratus.

[9] For the whole law will now be exacted, if the condition of pardon is loosened. But the Holy Spirit has not made a pact with us lightly, indeed of his own accord has made a pact, and so is the more to be honored. His pledge no one will dissolve except an ingrate.

Iam nec recipiet quae dimisit nec dimittet quae retinuit.

Now he will neither take back what he dismissed nor dismiss what he has retained.

[10] Nouissimi testamenti semper indemutabilis status est, et utique recitatio decreti consiliumque illud cum saeculo desinet. Satis denegauit ueniam eorum, quorum custodiam elegit, uindicauit quae non proinde concessit.

[10] The New Testament’s

status is always immutable, and assuredly the recitation of the decree

and that counsel will cease with the age. He has sufficiently denied pardon to those

whose keeping he has chosen; he has vindicated what he did not in like manner concede.

[11] Hinc est, quod neque idololatriae neque sanguini pax ab ecclesiis redditur. De qua finitione sua apostolos excidisse, puto, non licet credere; aut si credere quidam possunt, debebunt probare.

[11] From this
it is, that neither to idololatry nor to blood is peace returned by the churches. Concerning this
their own definition, I think, it is not permitted to believe that the apostles fell away; or if certain can believe it,
they will have to prove it.

XIII.

13.

[1] Nouimus plane et hic suspiciones eorum. Reuera enim suspicantur apostolum Paulum in secunda ad Corinthios eidem fornicatori ueniam dedisse, quem in prima dedendum satanae in interitum carnis pronuntiarit, impium patris de matrimonio heredem, quasi uel ipse postea stilum uerterit, scribens:

[1] We plainly know even here their suspicions. For in truth they suspect that the apostle Paul, in the Second to the Corinthians, granted pardon to the same fornicator, whom in the First he had pronounced to be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, the impious heir from his father’s matrimony, as if even he himself had afterward turned his stylus, writing:

[2]Si quis autem contristauit, non me contristauit, sed ex parte, ne uos onerem omnes. Satis est talis increpatio quae a multis fit; uti e contrario magis nos donare et aduocare, ne forte abundantiore tristitia deuoretur eiusmodi. Propter quod oro uos, constituatis in eum dilectionem.

[2]If anyone, however, has saddened, he has not saddened me, but in part, lest I burden you all. Sufficient is such a reproach as is made by many; so that, on the contrary, we may rather forgive and call him to our side, lest perhaps such a one be devoured by more abundant sadness. Wherefore I beg you, establish love toward him.

[3]In hoc enim et scripsi, uti cognoscam probationem uestram, quod in omnibus obauditis mihi. Si cui autem donaueritis, et ego. Nam et ego si quid donaui, donaui in persona Christi, ne fraudemur a satana, quoniam non ignoramus iniectiones eius.

[3]For to this end also I wrote, so that I might come to know your probation, that in all things you obey me. But if you have forgiven anyone, I also. For I too, if I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven in the person of Christ, lest we be defrauded by Satan, since we are not ignorant of his insinuations.

[4] Quid hic de fornicatore, quid de paterni tori contaminatore, quid de Christiano ethnicorum impudentiam supergresso intellegitur, cum proinde utique speciali uenia absoluisset quem speciali ira damnasset?

[4] What
here is understood about the fornicator, what about the defiler of the paternal couch, what about the Christian
who has surpassed the impudence of the ethnics, since therefore surely by a special pardon he would have absolved him whom by a special ire he had condemned?

[5] Obscurius miseretur quam indignatur. Apertior est in austeritate quam in lenitate. Atquin facilius ira quam indulgentia obliqua est.

[5] He has pity more obscurely
than he is indignant. He is more open in austerity than in lenity. And yet
anger is easier than indulgence, which is oblique.

Magis tristiora cunctantur quam laetiora.

Sadder things tarry more than gladder ones.

[6] De modica scilicet indulgentia agebatur; quae, si forte, nunc aestimaretur, quando maxima quaeque non soleant etiam sine praedicatione donari, tanto abest sine significatione.

[6] It was, of course, a matter of a modest indulgence; which, if perchance it were now being estimated, when the greatest things are not wont to be granted even without proclamation, it is all the more far from being without signification.

[7] Et tu quidem paenitentiam moechi ad exorandam fraternitatem in ecclesiam inducens conciliciatum et concineratum cum dedecore et horrore compositum prosternis in medium ante uiduas, ante presbyteros, omnium lacrimas suadentem, omnium uestigia lambentem, omnium genua detinentem, inque eum hominis exitum quantis potes misericordiae inlecebris bonus pastor et benedictus papa contionaris et in parabola ouis capras tuas quaeris?

[7] And you,

indeed, leading the adulterer’s penance into the church to beseech the brotherhood,

you cast him down in the midst, patched together and tricked out, composed with disgrace and horror,

before the widows, before the presbyters, urging the tears of all, licking the footsteps of all,

grasping the knees of all; and toward that outcome of the man, with as many allurements of mercy as you can,

you, good pastor and blessed pope, harangue; and in the parable of the sheep are you seeking your goats?

[8] Tua ouis ne rursus de grege exiliat (quasi non exinde iam liceat quod nec semel licuit), ceteras etiam metu comples cum maxime indulgens.

[8] Your sheep, lest she again leap out from the flock (as though from that point it were now permitted, which was not permitted even once), you even fill the others with fear while being at the most indulgent.

[9] Apostolus uero sceleratam libidinem fornicationis incesto onustam tam proiecte ignouisset, ut nec hunc saltem habitum legatum paenitentiae, quem ab ipso didicisse deberes, ab eo exegerit? Nihil de postero sit comminatus, nihil de cetero allocutus?

[9] But the Apostle
indeed—would he have forgiven the criminal libido of fornication, laden with incest, so abjectly,
that he did not even exact from him this at least, the habit, the legacy of penitence, which you ought to have learned from him himself,
from him? Has he threatened nothing about the hereafter, spoken nothing about what remains?

[10] Quin immo et ultra obsecrat, constituerent in eum dilectionem, quasi satisfaciens, non quasi ignoscens. Et tamen dilectionem audio, non communicationem.

[10] Nay rather, he even further beseeches, that they should establish toward him love, as if satisfying, not as if forgiving. And yet I hear love, not communion.

[11] Quod et ad Thessalonicenses:Si quis autem non obaudit sermoni nostro per epistolam, hunc notate, ne commisceamini illi, ut reuereatur, non quasi inimicum deputantes, sed quasi fratrem obiurgantes.

[11] Which also to the Thessalonians:But if anyone does not obey our word through the epistle, mark this one, do not commingle with him, that he may feel reverence, not accounting him as an enemy, but objurgating as a brother.

[12] Adeo potuisset dicere et fornicatori dilectionem solummodo concessam, non et communicationem, incesto uero nec dilectionem, quem scilicet auferri iussisset de medio ipsorum, multo magis utique de animo.

[12] Indeed he could have said that also to the fornicator only dilection was conceded, not also communication, but to the incestuous man not even dilection, whom, to be sure, he had ordered to be taken away from their midst, much more assuredly from the mind.

[13] Sed uerebatur, ne fraudarentur a satana circa eius personae amissionem, quem satanae ipse proiecerat, aut ne abundantia maeroris deuoraretur, quem in interitum carnis addixerat.

[13] But he was fearing, lest they be defrauded by Satan concerning the loss of his person, whom to Satan he himself had cast forth, or lest he be devoured by an abundance of grief, whom to the destruction of the flesh he had adjudged.

[14] Hic iam carnis interitum in officium paenitentiae interpretantur, quod uideatur ieiuniis et sordibus et incuria omni et dedita opera malae tractationis carnem exterminando satis Deo facere, ut ex hoc argumententur fornicatorem, immo incestum illum non in perditionem satanae ab apostolo traditum, sed in emendationem, quasi postea ueniam ob interitum id est conflictationem carnis consecuturum, igitur et consecutum.

[14] Here now they interpret the destruction of the flesh as an office of penitence, in that it seems by fastings and filths and every neglect and with a devoted effort of ill treatment, by exterminating the flesh, to make satisfaction to God, so that from this they argue that the fornicator, nay that incestuous man, was handed over by the apostle not into the perdition of Satan, but into amendment, as if thereafter he would obtain pardon on account of the destruction, that is, the conflictation of the flesh, and thus both would obtain it and therefore has obtained it.

[15] Plane idem apostolus Hymenaeum et Alexandrum satanae tradidit, ut emendarentur non blasphemare, sicut Timotheo suo scribit. Sed et ipse datum sibi ait sudem, angelum satanae, a quo colaphizaretur, ne se extolleret.

[15] Indeed the same apostle
Hymenaeus and Alexander he handed over to Satan, that they might be corrected not to blaspheme, as
he writes to his Timothy. But he also says that there was given to himself a stake, an angel of Satan, by whom
he might be buffeted, lest he exalt himself.

[16] Si et hoc tangunt, ut traditos satanae ab illo in emendationem, non in perditionem intellegamus, quid simile blasphemia et incestum et anima ab his integra, immo non aliunde quam ex summa sanctitate et ex omni innocentia elata, quae in apostolo colaphis, si forte, cohibebatur, per dolorem, ut aiunt, auriculae uel capitis?

[16] If they touch on this too, namely that those handed over to Satan by him are to be for emendation, not for perdition, let us understand, what similarity is there between blasphemy and incest and a soul intact from these, nay rather exalted from nothing else than from highest sanctity and from all innocence, which in the apostle was being restrained by buffets, perhaps, through the pain, as they say, of the ear or of the head?

[17] Incestum uero atque blasphemia totos homines in possessionem ipsi satanae, non angelo eius tradidisse meruerunt. Et de hoc enim interest, immo et ad hoc plurimum refert, quod illos traditos ab apostolo legimus satanae, apostolo uero angelum datum satanae.

[17] But incest and blasphemy have deserved to have whole men delivered into the possession of Satan himself, not to his angel. And this indeed is of interest—nay, it very much carries weight for this— that we read that those men were delivered to Satan by the apostle, but that to the apostle an angel was given of Satan.

[18] Postremo cum deprecatur Dominum Paulus, quid audit?Satis habe gratiam meam, uirtus enim in infirmitate perficitur. Hoc qui satanae deduntur audire non possunt.

[18] Finally, when Paul beseeches the Lord, what does he hear?Have my grace as sufficient, for power indeed is perfected in infirmity. Those who are given over to Satan cannot hear this.

[19] Hymenaei autem et Alexandri crimen si et in isto et in futuro aeuo inremissibile est, blasphemia scilicet, utique apostolus non aduersus terminum Domini sub spe ueniae dedisset satanae iam a fide in blasphemiam mersos.

[19] But if the crime of Hymenaeus and of Alexander is irremissible both in this age and in the future—namely, blasphemy—assuredly the apostle would not, against the Lord’s limit, under hope of pardon, have delivered to Satan men already plunged from faith into blasphemy.

[20] Vnde et naufragos eos iuxta fidem pronuntiauit, non habentes iam solacium nauis ecclesiae. Illis enim uenia negatur, qui de fide in blasphemia impegerunt. Ceterum ethnici et haeretici cotidie ex blasphemia emergunt.

[20] Whence
and he pronounced them shipwrecked with respect to the faith, no longer having the solace of the ship
of the Church. For pardon is denied to those who from faith have struck into blasphemy.
Moreover, pagans and heretics daily emerge out of blasphemy.

[21] Sed et si dixit:Tradidi eos satanae, uti disciplinam acciperent non blasphemandi, de ceteris dixit, qui illis traditis satanae id est extra ecclesiam proiectis erudiri haberent blasphemandum non esse.

[21] But even if he said:I have delivered them to Satan, so that they might receive the discipline of not blaspheming, he said this about the others, who, with those delivered to Satan—that is, cast outside the church— were to be instructed that blaspheming is not to be done.

[22] Sic igitur et incestum fornicatorem non in emendationem, sed in perditionem tradidit satanae, ad quem iam super ethnicum delinquendo transierat, ut discerent fornicandum non esse.

[22] Thus therefore he also delivered the incestuous fornicator not for emendation, but for perdition to Satan, to whom he had already, by sinning beyond a heathen, passed over, so that they might learn that one must not fornicate.

[23] Deniquein interitum, inquit, carnis, non in cruciatum, ipsam substantiam damnans, per quam exciderat, quae exinde iam perierat baptismate amisso, ut spiritus, inquit, saluus sit in die Domini.

[23] Finallyunto destruction, he says, of the flesh, not unto torment, condemning the very substance by which he had fallen away, which from then on had already perished with baptism lost, that the spirit, he says, may be saved in the day of the Lord.

[24] Et de hoc enim quaeratur, si spiritus hominis ipsius saluus erit. Ergo saluus erit spiritus tanto scelere pollutus, propter hoc perdita carne, ut saluus sit in poena? Ergo poenam sine carne censebit contraria interpretatio.

[24] And as to this indeed let it be inquired, whether the spirit of the man himself will be saved. Therefore will the spirit polluted by so great a crime, with the flesh lost on this account, be saved, so that he may be saved in penalty? Therefore the contrary interpretation will reckon a penalty without flesh.

Sic resurrectionem carnis amittimus.

Thus we lose the resurrection of the flesh.

[25] Superest igitur ut eum spiritum dixerit, qui in ecclesia censetur, saluum id est integrum praestandum in die Domini ab immunditiarum contagione eiecto incesto fornicatore. Siquidem subiungit:Non scitis, quod modicum fermentum totam desipiat consparsionem? Et tamen fornicatio incesta non erat modicum, sed grande fermentum.

[25] It remains,
therefore, that he meant that spirit which is accounted in the church, to be kept safe—that is, intact—
to be presented on the Day of the Lord from the contagion of uncleannesses, the incestuous
fornicator having been cast out. For indeed he subjoins: Do you not know that a little ferment leavens the whole
mixture? And yet incestuous fornication was not a little, but a great ferment.

XIV.

14.

[1] Et his itaque discussis, quae intercesserant, regredior ad secundam Corinthiorum, ut probem illud quoque apostoli dictum:Sufficiat eiusmodi homini increpatio ista quae a multis, non in fornicatoris persona conuenire.

[1] And with these things therefore discussed, which had intervened, I return to the Second to the Corinthians, to prove that saying of the apostle as well:Let this rebuke, which is by many, be sufficient for such a man, not to suit the persona of the fornicator.

[2] Si enim dedendum satanae pronuntiauerat in interitum carnis, utique damnauerat eum magis quam increpauerat. Alius ergo erat, cui uoluit sufficere increpationem; siquidem fornicator non increpationem de sententia eius retulerat, sed damnationem.

[2] If indeed he had pronounced that he be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, he had surely condemned him rather than rebuked him. Therefore it was another person for whom he wished the rebuke to suffice; since the fornicator had not received a rebuke from his sentence, but a condemnation.

[3] Nam et hoc ipsum dispiciendum tibi offero, an fuerint in epistola prima et alii qui apostolum contristauerint incondite agentes et contristati sint ab illo increpationem referentes iuxta sensum epistolae secundae, ex quibus in ea ueniam aliquis potuerit adipisci.

[3] For I offer to you this very point to be examined, whether there were in the first epistle also others who
saddened the apostle by acting in an unseemly manner, and were saddened by him,
bringing back an increpation according to the sense of the second epistle, from whom in it a pardon
someone could have obtained.

[4] Animaduertamus autem totam epistolam primam, ut ita dixerim, non atramento, sed felle conscriptam, tumentem, indignantem, dedignantem, comminantem, inuidiosam et per singulas causas in quosdam quasi mancipes earum figuratam.

[4] Let us observe, moreover, that the whole first epistle, so to speak, is written not with ink but with gall, written, swelling, indignant, disdaining, threatening, invidious, and for each several cause figured against certain persons as if contractors thereof.

[5] Sic enim exegerant schismata et aemulationes et dissensiones et praesumptiones et elationes et contentiones, ut et inuidia onerarentur et correptione retunderentur et superbia elimarentur et austeritate deterrerentur. Et qualis inuidia humilitatis aculeus?

[5] For thus had schisms and emulations and dissensions and presumptions and elations and contentions exacted, that both they be burdened by envy and be blunted by correction and pride be filed off and they be deterred by austerity. And what a goad to humility is envy?

[6]Deo gratias ago, quod neminem uestrum tinxerim, nisi Crispum et Gaium, ne qui dicat, quod in nomine meo tinxerim. Nec enim iudicaui scire aliquid in uobis quam Iesum Christum et hunc crucifixum.

[6]I give thanks to God, that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone say, that I baptized in my name. For I judged to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

[7]Et puto, nos Deus apostolos nouissimos elegit uelut bestiarios, quoniam spectaculum facti sumus huic mundo et angelis et hominibus et purgamenta huius mundi facti sumus, omnium peripsema, et: Non sum liber, non sum apostolus, non Christum Iesum Dominum nostrum uidi ?

[7]And I think, God has chosen us apostles as the last, as though beast-fighters, since a spectacle we have been made to this world and to angels and to men and we have been made the purgaments of this world, the off-scouring of all, and: Am I not free, am I not an apostle, have I not seen Christ Jesus our Lord ?

[8] De quali contra supercilio pronuntiare compulsus est:Mihi autem in modico est, ut a uobis interroger aut ab humano die; neque enim conscius mihi sum, et: Gloriam meam nemo inaniet. Non scitis quod angelos sumus iudicaturi?

[8] About of what sort he was compelled to pronounce against haughtiness:But to me it is a small thing, that I should be interrogated by you or by a human day; for I am not conscious to myself, and: No one shall make my glory void. Do you not know that we are going to judge angels?

[9] Ceterum libertas quam aperta obiurgationis, quam exerta acies machaerae spiritalis: Iamditati estis, iam saturati estis, iam regnatis, et: Si quis se putat scire, nondum scit quemadmodum oporteat eum scire !

[9] Moreover what a freedom, how open, of objurgation; how bared the edge of the spiritual sword: Alreadyyou have been enriched, already you are satiated, already you are reigning, and: If anyone thinks himself to know, he does not yet know how he ought to know !

[10] Nonne et tunc in faciem alicuius impingens,quis enim, inquit, te discernit ? Quid autem habes, quod non accepisti? <Si autem accepisti,> quid gloriaris, quasi non acceperis ? Nonne et illos in os caedit?

[10] Does he not also then, thrusting it into someone’s face,for who, he says, discerns you ? But what do you have, which you did not receive? <But if you have received,> why do you glory, as though you had not received ? Does he not also smite them on the mouth?

[11]Quidam autem in conscientia usque nunc quasi idolothytum edunt. Sic autem delinquentes percutiendo conscientias fratrum infirmas in Christum delinquent. Iam uero et nominatim: Aut non habemus potestatem manducandi et bibendi et mulieres circumducendi, sicut et ceteri apostoli et fratres Domini et Cephas ? Et: Si alii de potestate uestra consequuntur, non magis nos?

[11]Some, however, in conscience up to now eat as if an idol-offering. And thus, sinning by striking the weak consciences of the brothers, they will be sinning against Christ. Now indeed and specifically: Or do we not have the authority to eat and to drink and to lead about women, just as also the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas ? And: If others obtain from your authority, do not we more?

[12] Aeque et illos singulari stilo figit:Propterea qui se putat stare, uideat ne cadat, et: Si quis contentiosus uidetur, nos talem consuetudinem non habemus neque ecclesia Domini.

[12] Likewise he too fixes them with a singular style:Therefore he who thinks that he stands, let him see lest he fall, and: If anyone seems contentious, we have no such custom, nor the church of the Lord.

[13] Tali clausula maledicto detexta,si quis non amat Dominum Iesum, sit anathema maranatha, aliquem utique percussit.

[13] With such
a closing woven with a malediction, if anyone does not love the Lord Jesus, let him be anathema
maranatha, he certainly struck someone.

Sed illic magis stabo, ubi apostolus magis feruet, ubi ipse fornicator aliis quoque negotium fecit.

But there I will rather take my stand, where the apostle grows more fervent, where the fornicator himself also made trouble for others.

[14]Quasi non sim uenturus ad uos, inflati sunt quidam. Veniam autem citius, si permiserit Dominus, et cognoscam non sermonem eorum qui inflati sunt, sed uirtutem. Non enim in sermone est regnum Dei, sed in uirtute.

[14]As if I were not going to come to you, certain people have been inflated. But I will come sooner, if the Lord permits, and I will know not the sermon of those who are inflated, but power. For the kingdom of God is not in sermon, but in power.

Et quid uultis? Veniam ad uos in uirga an in spiritu lenitatis?

And what do you wish? Shall I come
to you with a rod, or in a spirit of lenity?

[15] Quid enim suberat?Auditur in uobis in totum fornicatio et talis fornicatio, qualis nec in gentibus, ut uxorem patris sui quis habeat. Et uos inflati estis, et non luxistis potius, ut auferatur de medio uestrum qui tale facinus admisit?

[15] What indeed was going on?It is heard among you, in total, fornication, and such fornication, such as not even among the nations, that someone should have his father’s wife. And you are inflated, and have not rather mourned, so that he who has admitted such a crime might be removed from your midst?

[16] Pro quo lugerent? Vtique pro mortuo. Ad quem lugerent?

[16] For whom should they mourn? Surely for the dead. Toward whom should they mourn?

Vtique ad Dominum, ut quo modo auferatur de medio eorum, non utique ut extra ecclesiam detur (hoc enim non a Deo postularetur quod erat in praesidentis officio), sed ut per mortem hanc quoque communem et propriam carnis ipsius, quae iam cadauer, quo captiuum, esset, immunditia inrecuperabili tabiosum, plenius de ecclesia deberet auferri.

Certainly to the Lord, that in some way he be taken away
from their midst, not, to be sure, that he be given over outside the Church (for this would not be asked from God, as it was in the presider’s office), but that through death also, common and proper to his very flesh, which is already a cadaver, whereby, being captive, it would be tabescent with irrecoverable uncleanness, he ought to be more fully removed from the Church.

[17] Et ideo, quomodo interim potuit auferri, iudicauit dedendum eiusmodi satanae in interitum carnis. Maledici enim eam sequebatur, quae diabolo proiciebatur, ut sacramento benedictionis exauctoraretur numquam in castra ecclesiae reuersura.

[17] And therefore, in whatever way it could meanwhile be removed, he judged such a one to be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. For the malediction was following her who was being cast to the devil, so that by the sacrament of benediction she might be dis-enrolled, never to return to the camp of the church.

[18] Videmus itaque hoc in loco diuisam apostoli seueritatem in quendam inflatum et in quendam incestum, in alterum uirga, in alterum sententia armatam: virga, qua minabatur, sententia, quam exsequebatur; illam adhuc coruscantem, hanc statim fulminantem, qua increpabat quaque damnabat.

[18] We see therefore in this place the apostle’s severity divided: against a certain puffed-up man and against a certain incestuous man, armed against the one with the rod, against the other with the sentence: with the rod, with which he threatened; with the sentence, which he executed; the former still coruscating, the latter at once fulminating, by which he rebuked and by which he condemned.

[19] Certumque est exinde increpitum quidem sub intentatione uirgae tremuisse, damnatum uero sub repraesentatione poenae perisse. Stat enim ille timens plagam, abiit ille luens poenam.

[19] And it is certain that, thereafter, the rebuked one indeed trembled under the threatening of the rod, but the condemned one
under the presentment of the penalty perished. For that one stands fearing the blow, that one went away
paying the penalty.

[20] Cum ad Corinthios eiusdem apostoli litterae iterantur, uenia fit plane, sed incertum cui, quia nec persona nec causa proscribitur. Res cum sensibus conferam.

[20] When to the Corinthians the letters of the same apostle are repeated, pardon is plainly granted, but it is uncertain to whom, because neither the person nor the cause is specified. I will compare the matter with the senses.

[21] Si incestus opponitur, ibidem erit et inflatus. Sane rei ratio satis habetur, cum inflatus increpitus est, incestus uero damnatus est. Inflato ignoscitur, sed increpito; incesto non uidetur ignotum, ut damnato.

[21] If the incestuous man is brought forward, there likewise will be the inflated one. Surely the rationale of the case is sufficiently attended to, since the inflated one is reproved, whereas the incestuous is condemned. To the inflated man it is pardoned, but with a rebuke; to the incestuous it does not seem to have been pardoned, as to one condemned.

[22] Si ei ignoscebatur, cui deuoratio ex maerore nimio timebatur, deuorari adhuc increpitus periclitabatur deficiens ob comminationem et maerens ob increpationem ; damnatus uero et culpa et sententia iam deuoratus deputabatur, qui non maerere haberet, sed pati quod ante passionem maerere potuisset.

[22] If he was being forgiven, for whom a devoration from excessive grief was feared, to be devoured still the increpated was imperiled, failing on account of the commination and grieving on account of the increpation ; but the condemned, both by guilt and by sentence, was already reckoned as devoured, who would not have to grieve, but to suffer what before the suffering he could have grieved.

[23] Si idcirco ignoscebatur, ne fraudaremur a satana, in eo utique detrimentum praecauebatur quod nondum perisset. Nihil de transacto praecauetur, sed de adhuc saluo.

[23] If for that reason forgiveness was being granted, lest we be defrauded by Satan, by this certainly loss was being guarded against in that which had not yet perished. Nothing is guarded against concerning what is past, but concerning what is still safe.

[24] Damnatus autem et quidem in possessionem satanae iam tunc perierat ecclesiae, cum tale facinus admiserat, nedum cum et ab ipsa eierabatur. Quomodo uereretur fraudem pati eius, quem iam et ereptum amiserat et damnatum habere non potuerat?

[24] But the condemned man,
and indeed into the possession of Satan, had already by then been lost to the Church, when such a crime
he had committed, much less when he was even being abjured by her herself. How would she fear to suffer fraud at his hands,
whom she had already both lost as snatched away and could not have as condemned?

[25] Postremo, quid iudicem indulgere conueniet, quod pronuntiatione deciderit an quod interlocutione suspenderit, et utique eum iudicem, qui non solet ea quae destruxit reaedificare, ne transgressor habeatur?

[25] Finally, what is it fitting for a judge to indulge: that which he has determined by pronouncement, or that which he has suspended by interlocution? and assuredly that judge, who is not accustomed to re-edify the things he has destroyed, lest he be held a transgressor?

[26] Age iam, si non tot personas prima epistola contristasset, si neminem increpuisset, neminem terruisset, si solum incestum cecidisset, si nullum in causam eius in pauorem misisset, inflatum consternasset, nonne melius suspicareris et fidelius argumentareris aliquem potius longe alium apud Corinthios tunc in eadem causa fuisse, ut increpitus et territus et maerore saucius propterea permittente modulo delicti ueniam postea ceperit, quam ut eam incesto fornicatori interpretareris?

[26] Come now
already, if the first epistle had not saddened so many persons, if he had rebuked no one,
had terrified no one, if he had struck down only the incestuous man, if he had put no one into fear on account of his
case, had cast the inflated man into consternation, would you not more rightly suspect and more faithfully
argue that someone else rather, quite another, among the Corinthians was then in the same case,
so that, rebuked and terrified and wounded with grief, therefore, the measure of the delict permitting,
he afterward received pardon, than that you interpret it for the incestuous fornicator?

[27] Hoc enim legisse debueras, etsi non epistola, sed in ipsa apostoli secta, a pudore clarius quam stilo eius impressum, ne scilicet Paulum apostolum Christi, doctorem nationum in fide et ueritate, uas electionis, ecclesiarum conditorem, censorem disciplinarum, tantae leuitatis inficeres, ut aut damnauerit temere quem mox esset absoluturus aut temere absoluerit quem non temere damnasset, ob solam licet fornicationem simplicis impudicitiae, nedum ob incestas nuptias et impiam luxuriam et libidinem parricidalem, quam nec nationibus comparauerat, ne in consuetudinem deputaretur, quam absens iudicarat, ne spatium reus lucraretur, quam aduocata etiam Domini uirtute damnauerat, ne humana sententia uideretur.

[27] For this you ought to have read, if not in the epistle, yet in the very sect of the apostle, stamped by modesty more clearly than by his style: namely, lest you stain Paul, apostle of Christ, teacher of the nations in faith and truth, vessel of election, founder of churches, censor of disciplines, with so great levity as that he either rashly condemned one whom he was soon going to absolve, or rashly absolved one whom he had not rashly condemned, even if for the sole fornication of simple unchastity, much less for incestuous nuptials and impious luxury and parricidal lust—which he had not even compared to the nations, lest it be reckoned as a custom—which he had judged in absence, lest the accused gain a delay—which he had condemned with even the Lord’s power invoked, lest it seem a human sentence.

[28] Lusit igitur et de suo spiritu et de ecclesiae angelo et de uirtute Domini, si quod de consilio eorum pronuntiauerat, rescidit.

[28] Therefore he played fast and loose
with his own spirit and with the angel of the church and with the power of the Lord, if what
he had pronounced by their counsel, he rescinded.

XV.

15.

[1] Si etiam sequentia illius epistolae ad intentationem apostoli extendas, nec ipsa comparabuntur ad obliterationem incesti, ne et hic suffundatur apostolus posteriorum incongruentia sensuum.

[1] If even the subsequent parts of that epistle you extend to the intention of the apostle, not even they will be comparable for the obliteration of incest, lest here too the apostle be made to blush by the incongruity of subsequent senses.

[2] Quale est enim, ut cum maxime incesto fornicatori postliminium largitus ecclesiasticae pacis statim ingesserit de auersatione immunditiarum, de amputatione macularum, de exhortatione sanctimoniarum, quasi nihil contrarium paulo ante decreuerit?

[2] What sort of thing is it, that just when, having bestowed upon the incestuous fornicator the postliminy of ecclesiastical peace, he immediately urged concerning the aversion of impurities, the amputation of maculations, the exhortation of sanctimonies, as if he had a little before decreed nothing contrary?

[3] Compara denique, an eius sit dicere:Propterea habentes ministrationem istam, secundum quod misericordiam consecuti sumus, non deficimus, sed abdicamus occulta dedecoris, qui non dedecoris tantum, sed et sceleris manifestum dedamnauerit.

[3] Compare finally, whether it is his to say:Therefore, having this ministration, according as we have obtained mercy, we do not lose heart, but we renounce the hidden things of disgrace, who has condemned as manifest not only disgrace but also crime.

[4] An eiusdem sit excusare aliquam impudicitiam qui inter titulos laborum suorum post angustias atque pressuras, post ieiunia et uigilias castimoniam quoque praedicarit.

[4] Whether it be of the same one to excuse any impudicity who among the titles of his labors, after anguishes and pressures, after fastings and vigils, has also preached chastity.

[5] An eiusdem sit recipere in communicationem reprobos quosque qui scribat:Quae enim societas iustitiae et iniquitati ? Quae autem communicatio luci et tenebris? Quae consonantia Christo et Belial? Aut quae pars fideli cum infideli?

[5] Whether it be of the same man to receive into communion every sort of reprobate who writes:For what society has justice with iniquity ? And what communication has light and darkness? What consonance between Christ and Belial? Or what part has a faithful man with an infidel?

Aut quis consensus templo Dei et idolis ?

Or what consent between the temple of God and idols ?

[6] Nonne constanter audire debebit, et quomodo discernis quae supra incesti restitutione iunxisti? Illo enim concorporato rursus ecclesiae et iustitia cum iniquitate sociatur et tenebrae cum luce communicant et Belial consonat Christo et infidelis cum fideli sacramenta participat.

[6] Will he not have to hear constantly, and how do you discern the things which above you joined by the restitution of the incestuous one? For, with that man re-incorporated to the church, justice is associated with iniquity again and darkness communicates with light and Belial is in consonance with Christ and the unbeliever with the believer participates in the sacraments.

[7] Et uiderint idola, ipse templi Dei uitiator in templum Dei conuenit. Nam et hic,uos enim, inquit, estis templum Dei uiui. Dicit enim, quia inhabitabo in uobis, et inambulabo, et ero Deus illorum, et illi erunt mihi populus.

[7] And let the idols look to it; he himself, the defiler of the temple of God, comes into the temple of God. For even here,for you, he says, are the temple of the living God. For he says, because I will dwell in you, and will walk about, and I will be their God, and they will be to me a people.

Propter quod discedite de medio eorum, separamini et immundum ne attigeritis.

Wherefore depart from the midst of them, be separated and do not touch the unclean.

[8] Hoc quoque euoluis, o apostole, ut cum maxime ipse tanto immunditiarum gurgiti manum tradis, immo et adhuc superdicis:Habentes igitur promissionem istam, dilecti, emundemus nos ab omni inquinamento carnis et spiritus perficientes castimoniam in Dei timore.

[8] This too you unroll, O apostle, precisely when you yourself are handing your hand to so great a whirlpool of uncleannesses, nay, you even say further:Therefore, having this promise, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting chastity in the fear of God.

[9] Oro te, qui talia infigit mentibus nostris, reuocauerat aliquem fornicatorem in ecclesiam? An ideo scribit, ne tibi nunc reuocasse uideatur?

[9] I pray you, you who impress such things upon our minds, had he recalled some fornicator into the church? Or is it for this reason that he writes, lest he seem to you to have now recalled him?

Haec sicuti et praeteritis praescribere, ita et sequentibus praeiudicare debebunt.

These things, just as they ought to prescribe for the past, so also ought to prejudge for those to follow.

[10] In finem enim epistolae dicens,ne rursus cum uenero, humiliet me Deus, et lugeam multos eorum qui ante deliquerunt et paenitentiam non egerunt super immunditia quam admiserunt, fornicatione et uilitate, non utique recipiendos constituit, si paenitentiam inissent, quos in ecclesia inuenturus erat, sed lugendos et sine dubio eiciendos, ut paenitentiam perderent.

[10] For at the end of the epistle he says,lest again, when I come, God may humble me, and I may mourn many of those who previously delinquented and did not do penitence over the immundity which they admitted, in fornication and vileness, he by no means decreed as to be received, if they had entered upon penitence, those whom he was going to find in the church, but as to be mourned and without doubt to be cast out, so that they might lose penitence.

[11] Et ceterum non competit eum de communicatione aliquid hic ostendisse, qui eam supra luci et tenebris, iustitiae et iniquitati negarat. Sed ignorant apostolum omnes isti, qui aliquid contra naturam atque propositum hominis ipsius, contra formam et regulam doctrinarum eius intellegunt, ut sanctitatis omnis etiam ex semetipso magistrum, impuritatis omnis exsecratorem et expiatorem et ubique talem citius incesto quam alicui humaniori reo ecclesiam reddidisse praesumant.

[11] And

moreover it does not befit him to have shown anything here about communion, who above
had denied it to light and to darkness, to justice and to iniquity. But all these
people are ignorant of the apostle, who understand anything contrary to the nature
and the purpose of the man himself, contrary to the form and the rule of his doctrines,
as though he were a master of every sanctity even from himself, an execrator and expiator
of every impurity—and, being such everywhere, they presume him to have more quickly restored
to the Church an incestuous person rather than some defendant of a more human sort.

XVI.

16.

[1] Necesse est igitur usque illis apostolum ostendi quem ego et in secunda Corinthiorum talem defendam qualem et in omnibus litteris noui. Qui et in prima primus omnium templum Dei dedicauit:Non scitis uos templum Dei esse et in uobis Dominum habitare?

[1] It is necessary therefore that the apostle be shown to them throughout, whom I too in the Second to the Corinthians defend as such as I know him in all his letters. And in the First, first of all, he dedicated the temple of God:Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Lord dwells in you?

[2] Qui et templo sanciendo purificandoque aeditualem legem scripsit:Si quis templum Dei uitiauerit, uitiabit illum Deus; templum enim Dei sanctum est, quod estis uos.

[2] Who also wrote an aeditual law for sanctioning and purifying the temple:If anyone vitiates the temple of God, God will vitiate him; for the temple of God is holy, which you are.

[3] Age iam, quis omnino uitiatum a Deo redintegrauit id est traditum satanae in interitum carnis, cum idcirco substruxerit:Nemo seducat semetipsum id est nemo praesumat uitiatum a Deo redintegrari denuo posse?

[3] Come now, who
at all has reintegrated what was vitiated by God, that is, delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,
since for that reason he subjoined: Let no one deceive himself that is, let no one presume
that what was vitiated by God can be reintegrated anew?

[4] Sicut rursus inter cetera, immo et ante cetera, moechos et fornicatores et molles et masculorum concubitores negans regnum Dei consecuturos praemisit:Ne erraueritis, scilicet si putaueritis eos consecuturos.

[4] Just as

again among other things, nay even before other things, he premised—denying that adulterers and fornicators and the effeminate and those who lie with males will obtain the kingdom of God: Do not err, namely, if you have supposed that they will obtain it.

[5] Quibus autem regnum adimitur, utique nec uita permittitur quae inest regno. Etiam ingerens:Sed haec quidem fuistis, sed abluti estis, sed sanctificati estis in nomine Domini Iesu Christi et in spiritu Dei nostri, quanto delicta ista ante lauacrum accepto facit, tanto post lauacrum inremissibilia constituit, siquidem denuo ablui non licet.

[5] But for those from whom the kingdom is taken away, certainly the life which is inherent in the kingdom is not permitted. Also adding:But these things indeed you were, but you were washed, but you were sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God, inasmuch as he locates these offenses before the bath has been received, so after the bath he establishes them as unremissible, since indeed it is not permitted to be washed anew.

[6] Agnosce et in sequentibus Paulum columnam immobilem disciplinarum:Cibi uentri, et uenter cibis, Deus et hunc et illos confidet; corpus autem non fornicationi, sed Deo (faciamus enim hominem, ait Deus, ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram, et fecit hominem Deus, ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei fecit illum) et Dominus corpori (sermo enim caro factus est).

[6] Recognize

and in the following Paul an immovable column of disciplines: Foods for the belly, and

the belly for foods; and God will destroy both this and those; but the body not

for fornication, but for God (for “Let us make man,” says God, “according to our image and

similitude,” and God made man, according to the image and similitude of God

he made him) and the Lord for the body (for the Word was made flesh).

[7]Deus autem et Dominum suscitauit et nos suscitabit per uirtutem suam), propter corporis scilicet nexum cum illo.

[7]But God both raised up the Lord and will raise us through his power), on account of the, namely, nexus of the body with him.

[8] Et ideo:Non scitis corpora uestra membra Christi? Quia et Christus Dei templum. Euertite templum hoc, et ego illud in triduo resuscitabo.

[8] And therefore:Do you not know your bodies are members of Christ? Because Christ also is God's temple. Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.

Auferens membra Christi faciam membra fornicariae? Non scitis, quod, qui adglutinatur fornicariae, unum corpus efficitur? Erunt enim duo in unam carnem.

Taking away the members of Christ, shall I make them members of a fornicatrix? Do you not know that the one who is adglutinated to a fornicatrix is made one body? For the two will be into one flesh.

Qui autem adglutinatur Domino, unus est spiritus. Fugite fornicationem.

But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication.

[9] Si reuocabilem uenia, quomodo fugiam moechus denuo futurus? Nihil profecero, si eam fugero; unum ero corpus, cui communicando adglutinabor.Omne delictum quod admiserit homo extra corpus est; qui autem fornicatur, in corpus suum peccat.

[9] If it is recallable by pardon, how shall I flee, being about to be an adulterer anew? I shall have profited nothing, if I flee it; I shall be one body, to which by communicating I shall be glued.Every offense which a man shall have committed is outside the body; but he who fornicates sins against his own body.

[10] Ac ne hoc dictum in licentiam fornicationis inuaderes, ut in rem tuam, non Domini delicturus, aufert te tibi, et Christo, sicut disposuerat, addicit:Et non estis uestri, statim apponens: Empti enim estis pretio, sanguine scilicet Domini: Glorificate et tollite Deum in corpore uestro.

[10] And lest you should rush upon this saying into a license of fornication, as though about to transgress in your own affair, not the Lord’s, he takes you away from yourself, and, as he had arranged, adjudges you to Christ:And you are not your own, immediately appending: For you were bought with a price, namely with the Lord’s blood: Glorify and bear God in your body.

[11] Hoc qui praecipit, uide an ignouerit ei, qui dedecorauerit Deum et qui deiecerit eum de corpore suo et quidem per incestum.

[11] He who prescribes this, see whether he has forgiven him who has dishonored God and who has cast Him out of his body, and indeed by incest.

[12] Si uis omnem notitiam apostoli ebibere, intellege, quanta secure censurae omnem siluam libidinum caedat et eradicet et excaudicet, ne quidquam de recidiuo fruticare permittat, aspice illum a iusta fruge naturae, a matrimonii dico pomo, animas ieiunare cupientem.

[12] If you wish to drink down all
the knowledge of the apostle, understand how greatly the axe of censure cuts down and uproots and hews to the stump all the forest
of lusts, so that it permits nothing to sprout again from the regrowth,
look at him desiring souls
to fast from the just fruit of nature—I mean the fruit of marriage.

[13]De quibus autem scripsistis, bonum est homini mulierem non contingere; sed propter fornicationem unusquisque uxorem suam habeat; uir uxori et uxor uiro debitum reddat.

[13]Concerning the things, however, that you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman; but because of fornication let each one have his own wife; let the husband to the wife and the wife to the husband the debt render.

[14] Huius boni fibulam quis illum nesciat inuitum relaxasse, ut fornicationi obuiam esset? Quam si cui indulsit uel indulget, utique consilium remedii sui infregit et tenebitur iam frenandis continentiae coniugiis, si fornicatio, ob quam permittuntur, non timebitur. Non enim timebitur quae ignoscetur.

[14] Of this good,
who does not know that he unwillingly relaxed the clasp, so as to obviate fornication?
Which, if to anyone he has indulged or indulges, he has surely broken the plan of his remedy and
he will now be held to the bridling of the conjugal unions of continence, if fornication, on account of which
they are permitted, will not be feared. For that which will be pardoned will not be feared.

[15] Et tamen ignouisse se profitetur matrimonii usum, non imperasse. Vult enim omnes sibi esse aequales. Vnde autem licita ignoscuntur, inlicita qui sperant?

[15] And yet he professes that he has pardoned the use of matrimony, not commanded it. For he wishes all to be equal to himself. But where lawful things are pardoned, who hope for unlawful things?

Innuptis quoque et uiduis bonum esse dicit exemplo eius perseuerare, si uero deficerent, nubere; quia praeest nubere quam uri.

He says that it is good for the unmarried and for widows to persevere by his example, but if indeed they were failing, to marry; because it is preferable to marry than to burn.

[16] Quibus, oro, ignibus deterius est uri, concupiscentiae an poenae? Atquin si fornicatio habet ueniam, non urit concupiscentia eius. Apostoli autem magis est poenae ignibus prouidere.

[16] By which,
I pray, fires is it worse to be burned, of concupiscence or of punishment? And yet, if fornication
has pardon, its concupiscence does not burn. But it is rather the Apostle’s to provide against the fires
of punishment.

Quod si poena est quae urit, ergo ueniam non habet fornicatio, quam manet poena.

But if it is punishment that burns, then fornication has no pardon, for punishment awaits it.

[17] Interea et diuortium prohibens pro eo aut uiduitatis perseuerantiam aut reconciliationem pacis dominico praecepto aduersus moechiam procurat, quiaqui dimiserit uxorem praeter causam moechiae, facit eam moechari, et qui dimissam a uiro ducit, moechatur.

[17] Meanwhile, and by prohibiting divorce, in its stead he provides either perseverance in widowhood or reconciliation of peace by the Lord’s precept against moechia, becausewhoever shall dismiss his wife except for the cause of moechia makes her commit moechary, and whoever marries a woman dismissed from her husband commits moechary.

[18] Quanta remedia Spiritus sanctus instaurat, ne id scilicet denuo admittatur quod ignosci denuo non uult? Iam si usquequaque optimum dicit homini sic esse:Iunctus es uxori, ne quaesieris solutionem, ut moechiae locum non des: Solutus es ab uxore, ne quaesieris uxorem, ut opportunitatem tibi serues.

[18] How great remedies the Holy Spirit restores, lest, to wit, that be admitted again which he does not wish to be forgiven again? Now if in every respect he says it is best for a man to be thus:You are joined to a wife, do not seek a dissolution, so that you may not give a place to adultery: You are loosed from a wife, do not seek a wife, so that you may preserve an opportunity for yourself.

[19]Quod et si duxeris uxorem, et si nupserit uirgo, non peccat, pressuram tamen carnis habebunt huiusmodi, — et hic parcendo permittit. Ceterum tempus in collecto constituit, ut et qui habent uxores sic sint tamquam non habentes. Praeterit enim habitus huius mundi, iam scilicet non desiderantis: Crescite et multiplicamini.

[19]Which, even if you should take a wife, and if a virgin should marry, she does not sin; nevertheless such will have pressure of the flesh, — and here, by sparing, he permits. Moreover, he has established the time as contracted, so that even those who have wives should be thus as not having. For the fashion of this world passes by, now, to be sure, no longer desiring: Increase and multiply.

[20] Sic uult nos praeter sollicitudinem degere, quiainnupti de Domino curent quomodo placeant Deo, nupti uero de mundo recogitent quomodo placeant coniugio. Sic melius facere pronuntiat uirginis conseruatorem quam erogatorem.

[20] Thus he wills us to live beyond solicitude, becausethe unmarried care about the Lord, how they may please God, but the married, on the other hand, think about the world, how they may please the conjugal union. Thus he pronounces that the conservator of a virgin does better than the dispenser.

[21] Sic et illam beatiorem discernit quae amisso uiro fidem ingressa amauerit occasionem uiduitatis.

[21] Thus also he discerns as more blessed her who, with her husband lost, having entered the faith, has loved the occasion of widowhood.

Si haec omnia contmentiae consilia ut diuina commendat, puto, inquit, et ego spiritum Dei habeo,

If he commends all these counsels of continence as divine, I think, he says, and I too have the Spirit of God,

[22] quis iste est adsertor audacissimus omnis impudicitiae, moechorum et fornicatorum et incestorum plane fidelissimus aduocatus, quibus honorandis suscepit hanc causam aduersus Spiritum sanctum, ut falsum testimonium recitet de apostolo eius?

[22] who is this most audacious asserter of all impudicity, the plainly most faithful advocate of adulterers and fornicators and the incestuous, for the honoring of whom he has undertaken this cause against the Holy Spirit, that he might recite false testimony about his apostle?

[23] Nihil tale Paulus indulsit, qui totam carnis necessitatem de probis etiam titulis obliterare conatur. Indulget sane non adulteria, sed nuptias. Parcit sane matrimoniis, non stupris.

[23] Paul indulged nothing of the sort, he who strives to obliterate the whole necessity of the flesh even from honorable titles. He surely indulges not adulteries, but nuptials. He surely spares marriages, not defilements.

Temptat ne naturae quidem ignoscere, quique culpae blandiatur? Studet compescere benedictionis concubitum, ne maledictionis excusetur.

Does he attempt not even to pardon nature, he who blandishes guilt? He strives to restrain the intercourse of benediction, lest that of malediction be excused.

[24] Hoc ei supererat, carnem uel a sordibus purgare; a maculis enim non potest. Sed est hoc sollemne peruersis et idiotis haereticis, iam et psychicis uniuersis, alicuius capituli ancipitis occasione aduersus exercitum sententiarum instrumenti totius armari.

[24] This remained for him, to purge the flesh or at least from filth; for from stains he cannot. But this is customary to perverse and idiotic heretics, now even to all the Psychics, on the occasion of some chapter ambiguous, to be armed against the army of the sentences of the whole Instrument.

XVII.

17.

[1] Prouoca ad apostolicam aciem, aspice epistulas eius, omnes pro pudicitia, pro castitate, pro sanctitate praetendunt, omnes in luxuriae et lasciuiae et libidinis negotia iaculantur.

[1] Provoke
to the apostolic battle-line, look at his epistles: all put forward on behalf of pudicity, of chastity,
of sanctity; all hurl at the affairs of luxury and lasciviousness and libido.

[2] Quid denique et Thessalonicensibus scribit?Aduocatio enim nostra non ex seductione nec ex immunditia, et: Haec est uoluntas Dei, sanctimonia uestra, abstinere uos a fornicatione, scire unumquemque uas suum possidere in sanctimonia et bonore, non in libidine concupiscentiae, sicut nationes, quae Deum ignorant.

[2] What, finally, does he also write to the Thessalonians?For our exhortation is not from seduction nor from immundity, and: This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication, that each one know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and in honor, not in the libido of concupiscence, like the nations who are ignorant of God.

[3] Quid Galatae legunt?Manifesta sunt opera carnis. Quaenam ista?

[3] What do the Galatians read?The works of the flesh are manifest. What are these?

In primis posuit fornicationem immunditiam lasciuiam, quae praedico uobis, sicut praedixi, quod qui talia agunt, regnum Dei non sunt consecuturi hereditati.

In the first place he set fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, which I foretell to you, as I foretold, that those who do such things are not going to obtain the inheritance of the kingdom of God.

[4] Romani uero quid magis discunt quam non derelinquere Dominum post fidem?Quid ergo dicimus? Perseueremus in delinquentia, ut superet gratia?

[4] The Romans indeed, what do they learn more than not to forsake the Lord after faith?What therefore do we say? Shall we persevere in delinquency, that grace may surpass?

Absit. Qui mortui sumus delinquentiae, quomodo uiuemus in ea adhuc?

Far be it. We who have died to delinquency, how shall we live in it still?

[5]An ignoratis, quod, qui tincti sumus in Christo, in mortem eius sumus tincti? Consepulti ergo illi sumus per baptismum in mortem, ut, sicut Christus resurrexit a mortuis, ita et nos in nouitate uitae incedamus.

[5]Or do you not know that we who have been baptized in Christ have been baptized into his death? Therefore we have been co-buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ rose from the dead, so also we may walk in newness of life.

[6]Si enim consepulti sumus simulacro mortis eius, sed et resurrectionis erimus, hoc scientes quod uetus homo noster confixus est illi. Si autem mortui sumus cum Christo, credimus quod et conuiuemus cum illo, scientes quod Christus suscitatus a mortuis iam non moriatur, mors non iam dominetur eius.

[6]If indeed we have been co-buried in the likeness of his death, we shall also be of the resurrection, this knowing that our old man has been crucified with him. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, no longer dies; death no longer has dominion over him.

[7]Quod enim mortuus est delinquentiae, mortuus est semel. Quod autem uiuit, Deo uiuit. Ita et uos reputate uosmetipsos mortuos quidem delinquentiae, uiuentes autem Deo per Christum Iesum.

[7]For the death he died, he died to sin, once. But the life he lives, he lives to God. Thus you also reckon yourselves indeed dead to sin, but living to God through Christ Jesus.

[8] Igitur semel Christo mortuo nemo potest, qui post Christum mortuus, delinquentiae, et maxime tantae, reuiuiscere. Aut si possit fornicatio et moechia denuo admitti, poterit et Christus denuo mori.

[8] Therefore, with Christ having died once, no one who has died after Christ can revive to delinquency, and especially to one so great. Or if fornication and moechy (adultery) can be admitted anew, Christ also will be able to die anew.

[9] Instat autem apostolus prohibens regnare delinquentiam in corpore nostro mortali, cuius infirmitatem carnis nouerat. Sicut enim exhibuistis membra uestra famula immunditiae et iniquitati , ita et nunc exhibete ea famula iustitiae in sanctimoniam.

[9] However, the apostle presses
forbidding delinquency to reign in our mortal body, whose weakness
of the flesh he knew. For just as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and
to iniquity , so now present them as servants to justice for
sanctification.

[10] Nam etsi habitare bonum in carne sua negauit, sed secundum legem litterae, in qua fuit, secundum autem legem spiritus, cui nos annectit, liberat ab infirmitate carnis.Lex enim, inquit, spiritus uitae manumisit te a lege delinquentiae et mortis.

[10] For although he denied that the good dwells in his flesh, but according to the law of the letter, in which he was, whereas according to the law of the Spirit, to which he annexes us, it frees from the infirmity of the flesh.The law indeed, he says, of the Spirit of life has manumitted you from the law of delinquency and of death.

[11] Licet enim ex parte ex Iudaismo disputare uideatur, sed in nos dirigit integritatem et plenitudinem disciplinarum, propter quoslaborantes in lege miserit Deus per carnem filium suum in similitudine carnis delinquentiae, et propter delinquentiam damnauerit delinquentiam in carne, ut ius legis, inquit, impleretur in nobis, qui non secundum carnem, sed secundum spiritum incedimus. Qui enim secundum carnem incedunt, ea quae carnis sunt sapiunt, et qui secundum spiritum, ea quae sunt spiritus.

[11] For although he seems in part to dispute from Judaism, yet he directs toward us the integrity and plenitude of the disciplines, on account of whom,as we were laboring under the law, God sent through flesh his Son in the likeness of delinquent flesh, and on account of delinquency he condemned delinquency in the flesh, so that the right of the law, he says, might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to flesh, but according to spirit. For those who walk according to flesh mind the things that are of the flesh, and those according to spirit, the things that are of the spirit.

[12] Sensum autem carnis mortem adfirmauit esse, dehinc et inimicitiam et in Deum, et eos qui sunt in carne, id est in sensu carnis, Deo placere non posse.

[12] But the sense of the flesh he affirmed to be death, and thereafter both enmity—and that against God—and that those who are in the flesh, that is, in the sense of the flesh, are not able to please God.

[13] Et,si secundum carnem uiuitis, inquit, futurum est ut moriamini. Quid autem intellegimus carnis sensum et carnis uitam nisi quodcumque pudet pronuntiare? Cetera enim carnis et apostolus nominasset.

[13] And,if you live according to the flesh, he says, it will come to pass that you die. What
then do we understand the sense of the flesh and the life of the flesh to be, if not whatever it shames one to pronounce? For the other things of the flesh the apostle too would have named.

[14] Proinde et Ephesiis pristina reputans de futuro monet:In quibus et nos conuersati sumus facientes concupiscentias et uoluptates carnis. Notans denique illos qui se negassent, scilicet Christianos, eo quod se tradidissent in operationem immunditiae omnis, uos autem, inquit, non sic didicistis Christum.

[14] Accordingly, to the Ephesians as well, recounting former things he warns about the future:In which things even we conducted ourselves, doing the concupiscences and pleasures of the flesh. Marking, finally, those who had denied themselves, namely Christians, in view of the fact that they had delivered themselves over to the working of every uncleanness, but you, he says, did not so learn Christ.

[15] Et iterum si dicit:Qui furabatur, iam non furetur, silet qui moechabatur hactenus, non moechetur, et qui fornicabatur hactenus, non fornicetur. Adiecisset enim et haec, si talibus ueniam porrigere consuesset uel porrigi omnino uoluisset, qui nec uerbo pollui uolens.

[15] And again, if he says:He who was stealing, let him no longer steal, he is silent about “he who was committing adultery up to now, let him not commit adultery,” and “he who was fornicating up to now, let him not fornicate.” For he would have added even these, if he had been accustomed to extend pardon to such persons, or had at all willed that it be extended—he who was unwilling to be defiled even by a word.

[16]Omnis, inquit, sermo turpis non procedat ex ore uestro. Item: Fornicatio autem et immunditia omnis ne nominetur quidem inter uos, sicut decet sanctos, tanto abest ut excusetur, hoc scientes, quod omnis fornicator aut immundus non habeat Dei regnum. Nemo uos seducat inanibus uerbis. Propter hoc uenit ira Dei super filios incredulitatis.

[16]Every, he says, shameful speech let not proceed from your mouth. Likewise: Fornication and all uncleanness let not even be named among you, as befits saints, so far is it from being excused, knowing this, that every fornicator or unclean person does not have the kingdom of God. Let no one deceive you with inane words. For this cause comes the wrath of God upon the sons of unbelief.

[17] Quis seducit inanibus uerbis, nisi qui contionatur remissibilem esse moechiam? Non intuens etiam fundamenta eius ab apostolo effossa, cum ebrietates et comessationes compescit, sicut et hic:Et nolite inebriari uino, in quo est luxuria.

[17] Who
seduces with inane words, if not he who harangues that adultery is remissible? Not
noticing that even its foundations have been dug out by the apostle, when he restrains drunkennesses and
carousings, just as also here: And do not be inebriated with wine, in which is profligacy.

[18] Demonstrat et Colossensibus, quae membra mortificent super terram, fornicationem immunditiam libidinem concupiscentiam malam et turpiloquium.

[18] He also shows
to the Colossians which members to mortify upon the earth, fornication
impurity, libido, evil concupiscence, and turpiloquy.

Concede iam tot ac talibus sententiis unum illud quod tenes. Pauca multis, dubia certis, obscura manifestis adumbrantur.

Concede now, to so many and such sentences, that one thing which you hold. A few things are adumbrated by many, doubtful by certain, obscure by manifest.

[19] Etiam si pro certo apostolus Corinthio illi fornicationem donasset, esset aliud, quod semel contra institutum suum pro ratione temporis fecerat. Circumcidit Timotheum solum et tamen abstulit circumcisionem.

[19] Even if for certain the apostle had pardoned that Corinthian his fornication, it would be another matter, which he had once done, against his own instituted rule, for the reason of the time. He circumcised Timothy alone, and yet he abrogated circumcision.

XVIII.

18.

[1] Sed haec, inquit, ad interdictionem pertinebunt omnis impudicitiae et ad indictionem omnis pudicitiae, saluo tamen loco ueniae, quae non statim denegatur, si delicta damnantur, quando ueniae tempus cum damnatione concurrat, quam excludit.

[1] But these things, he says, will pertain to the interdiction of all impudicity and to the indiction of all pudicity, however with the place of pardon safeguarded, which is not at once denied, if offenses are condemned, provided that the time of pardon does not concur with condemnation, which excludes it.

[2] Sequebatur et hoc psychicos sapere, et ideo reseruauimus huic loco quae aperte ad communicationem ecclesiasticam causis eiusmodi negandam etiam antiquitus cauta sunt.

[2] It followed also and
that the psychics relish this; and therefore we have reserved for this place those provisions which openly to
ecclesiastical communion, for denying in cases of this kind, even from of old, have been prescribed.

[3] Nam et in prouerbiis Salomon, quaeparoimi/aj dicimus, specialiter de moecho nusquam expiabili, moechus autem, inquit, per indigentiam sensuum perditionem animae suae adquirit, dolores et dehonestationes sustinet. Ignominia autem eius non abolebitur in aeuum. Plena enim zeli indignatio uiri non parcet in die iudicii.

[3] For also in the Proverbs of Solomon, which we callparoimi/aj, specifically about the adulterer nowhere expiable, but the adulterer, he says, through want of sense acquires the perdition of his soul; he endures pains and dishonors. But his ignominy will not be abolished forever. For the husband’s indignation, full of zeal‑jealousy, will not spare in the day of judgment.

[4] Hoc si de ethnico putaueris dictum, certe de fidelibus iam audisti per Esaiam:Excedite de medio eorum et separamini et immundum ne attigeritis. Habet statim in psalmis: Beatum uirum, qui non abierit in consilio impiorum nec in uia peccatorum steterit et in cathedra pestilentiae non sederit.

[4] This if you suppose to have been said of the ethnic (pagan), certainly concerning the faithful you have already heard through Isaiah:Depart out from their midst and be separated and do not touch the unclean. It has straightway in the psalms: Blessed the man, who has not gone in the counsel of the impious nor stood in the way of sinners and has not sat in the chair of pestilence.

[5] Cuius et postea uox:Non sedi cum consensu uanitatis, et cum inique agentibus non introibo, odiui ecclesiam male agentium et cum impiis non sedebo, et: Lauabo cum innocentibus manus meas et altare tuum circumdabo, Domine, ut solus plures, quoniam quidem cum sancto sanctus eris: Et cum uiro innocente innocens eris, et cum electo electus eris, et cum peruerso peruersus eris.

[5] And afterwards his voice also:I have not sat with the consent of vanity, and with those acting iniquitously I will not enter, I have hated the assembly of those doing evil and with the impious I will not sit, and: I will wash my hands with the innocent and will encircle your altar, O Lord, so as alone to be more, since indeed with the holy you will be holy: And with the innocent man you will be innocent, and with the elect you will be elect, and with the perverse you will be perverse.

[6] Et alibi:Peccatori autem dicit Dominus, ut quid tu exponis iustificationes meas et adsumis testamentum meum per os tuum? Si uidebas furem, currebas cum eo et cum adulteris portionem tuam ponebas.

[6] And elsewhere:But to the sinner the Lord says, why do you expound my justifications and assume my testament by your mouth? If you saw a thief, you were running with him, and with adulterers you were placing your portion.

[7] Hinc igitur informatus et apostolus:Scripsi, inquit, uobis in epistola, non commisceri fornicatoribus, non utique fornicatoribus huius mundi, et reliqua. Ceterum oportebat uos exire de mundo.

[7] Hence

therefore instructed, even the apostle: I wrote, he says, to you in the epistle,
not to mingle with fornicators, not indeed with the fornicators of this world, and
the rest. Otherwise you would have had to go out of the world.

[8]Nunc autem scribo uobis, si quis frater nominatur in uobis fornicator aut idololatres (quid enim tam coniunctum?) aut fraudator (quid enim tam propinquum ?) et cetera, cum talibus ne cibum quidem sumere, nedum eucharistiam; quoniam scilicet et fermentum modicum totam desipit consparsionem.

[8]Now, however, I write to you, if anyone called a brother among you is a fornicator or an idolater (for what is so conjoined?) or a defrauder (for what is so near ?) and so forth, with such people not even to take food, let alone the Eucharist; for of course even a little leaven renders the whole mixture insipid.

[9] Item ad Timotheum:Manus nemini cito imponas neque communices delictis alienis. Item ad Ephesios: Nolite ergo participes esse eorum; fuistis enim aliquando tenebrae.

[9] Likewise to Timothy:Do not lay hands upon anyone hastily, nor share in others’ sins. Likewise to the Ephesians: Therefore do not be participants with them; for you were once darkness.

[10] Et adhuc pressius:Nolite communicare operibus infructuosis tenebrarum, immo et reuincite ea. Quae enim in occulto ab eis fiunt, turpe est et dicere.

[10] And still more strictly:Do not share in the unfruitful works of darkness, rather even reprove them. For the things that are done by them in secret, it is shameful even to speak.

[11] Quid turpius impudicitiis? Si autem et ab otiose incedente fratre denuntiat subduci Thessalonicensibus, quanto magis et a fornicatore?

[11] What is more shameful than impudicities? But if even to the Thessalonians it is enjoined to withdraw from a brother walking idly, how much more from a fornicator?

Haec enim consultata sunt Christi ecclesiam diligentis, qui se pro ea tradidit, uti eam sanctificet emundans lauacro aquae in uerbo et sistat sibi ecclesiam gloriosam non habentem maculam aut rugam, utique post lauacrum, sed sit sancta et sine opprobrio, exinde scilicet sine ruga uetustatis ut uirgo, sine macula fornicationis ut sponsa, sine probro uilitatis ut emundata.

For these things have been taken into counsel by Christ, who loves the Church, who gave himself for her,
that he might sanctify her, cleansing by the laver of water in the word, and might present to himself
a glorious Church not having stain or wrinkle—assuredly after the laver—but that she be holy and without reproach,
thereafter, namely, without the wrinkle of oldness as a virgin,
without the stain of fornication as a bride, without the disgrace of vileness as one cleansed.

[12] Quid, si et hic respondere concipias, adimi quidem peccatoribus uel maxime carne pollutis communicationem, sed ad praesens, restituendam scilicet ex paenitentiae ambitu, secundum illam clementiam Dei, quae mauult peccatoris paenitentiam quam mortem?

[12] What if you should also conceive to answer here, that communion is indeed taken away from sinners, or most of all from those defiled by flesh
but for the present, to be restored, namely from the ambit of penitence,
according to that clemency of God, who prefers the repentance of the sinner rather than death?

[13] Hoc enim fundamentum opinionis uestrae usquequaque pulsandum est. Dicimus itaque, clementiae diuinae si iterasse competisset demonstrationem sui etiam post fidem lapsis, ita apostolus diceret: Nolite communicare operibus tenebrarum, nisi paenitentiam egerint, et: Cum talibus ne cibum quidem sumere, nisi posteaquam caligas fratrum uolutando deterserint, et: Qui templum Dei uitiauerit, uitiabit illum Deus, nisi omnium focorum cineres in ecclesia de capite suo excusserit.

[13] For this foundation of your opinion must be battered on every side. We say, therefore, that if it had been fitting for the divine clemency to have repeated a demonstration of itself even for those who have fallen after the faith, the apostle would speak thus: Do not communicate with the works of darkness, unless they have done penance, and: With such men not even to take food, unless after they have, by rolling, wiped clean the boots of the brethren, and: Whoever shall have vitiated the temple of God, God will vitiate him, unless he has shaken from his head in the church the cinders of all hearths.

[14] Debuerat enim quae damnauerat proinde determinasse, quonam usque et sub condicione damnasset, si temporali et condicionali et non perpetua seueritate damnasset.

[14] For it ought to have likewise determined, how far and under condition it had condemned, if it had condemned with a temporal and conditional, and not perpetual, severity.

[15] Porro cum in omnibus epistolis et post fidem talem prohibeat admitti et admissum a communicatione detrudat, sine spe condicionis ullius aut temporis, nostrae magis sententiae adsistit, eam paenitentiam ostendens Dominum malle, quae ante fidem, quae ante baptisma morte peccatoris potior habeatur, semel diluendi per Christi gratiam semel pro peccatis nostris morte functi.

[15] Furthermore, since in all the epistles he both forbids that such a one be admitted even after faith and, if admitted, thrusts him from communion, without hope of any condition or time, he rather takes the side of our opinion, showing that the Lord prefers that repentance which is before faith, which is before baptism, to be held preferable with the death of the sinner, we being once to be washed by Christ’s grace, he who once for our sins underwent death.

[16] Nam hoc etiam in sua persona apostolus statuit. Adfirmans enim Christum ad hoc uenisse, ut peccatores saluos faceret, quorum primus ipse fuisset, quid adicit?Et misericordiam sum consecutus, quoniam ignorans feci in incredulitate.

[16] For this also the apostle establishes in his own person. For affirming that Christ for this had come, to make sinners safe, of whom he himself had been the first, what does he add?And I obtained mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.

[17] Ita clementia illa Dei malentis paenitentiam peccatons quam mortem ad ignorantes adhuc et adhuc incredulos spectat, quorum causa liberandorum uenerit Christus, non qui iam Deum norint et sacramentum didicerint fidei.

[17] Thus that clemency of God, preferring the penitence of the sinner rather than death, is directed toward those still ignorant and still incredulous, for whose sake, to free them, Christ came, not toward those who already know God and have learned the sacrament of faith.

[18] Quod si clementia Dei ignorantibus adhuc et infidelibus competit, utique et paenitentia ad se clementiam inuitat, salua illa paenitentiae specie post fidem, quae aut leuioribus delictis ueniam ab episcopo consequi poterit aut maioribus et inremissibilibus a Deo solo.

[18] But if the clemency of God pertains to those still ignorant and to infidels, surely also penitence invites clemency to itself, with that species of penitence after faith preserved, which can obtain pardon either for lighter delicts from the bishop or for greater and irremissible ones from God alone.

XIX.

19.

[1] Sed quonam usque de Paulo, quando etiam Iohannes nescio quid diuersae parti subplaudere uideatur? Quasi in Apocalypsi manifeste fornicationi posuerit paenitentiae auxilium, ubi ad angelum Thyatirenorum Spiritus mandat habere se aduersus eum, quod teneret mulierem Iezabel,quae se propheten dicit et docet atque seducit seruos meos ad fornicandum et edendum de idolothytis.

[1] But how far about Paul, since even John seems, I know not what, to give some applause to the opposing party? As if in the Apocalypse he had plainly set the aid of penitence for fornication, where to the angel of the Thyatirans the Spirit commands that he has against him, that he tolerates the woman Jezebel,who says she is a prophetess and teaches and seduces my servants to fornicate and to eat from idol-offerings.

[2]Et largitus sum illi temporis spatium, ut paenitentiam iniret, nec uult eam inire nomine fornicationis. Ecce dabo eam in lectum et moechos eius cum ipsa in maximam pressuram, nisi paenitentiam egerint operum eius.

[2]And I have granted to her a span of time, that she might enter into penitence, and she is not willing to enter it in the matter of fornication. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and her adulterers with her, into very great tribulation, unless they do penitence for her works.

[3] Bene autem quod apostolis et fidei et disciplinae regulis conuenit.Siue enim ego, inquit, siue illi, sic praedicamus. Totius itaque sacramenti interest nihil credere ab Iohanne concessum quod a Paulo sit denegatum.

[3] Well
however, what accords with the apostles and with the rules of faith and discipline. For whether I,
he says, or whether they, thus we preach. Therefore it is in the interest of the whole sacrament
that nothing be believed to have been conceded by John which has been denied by Paul.

[4] Hanc aequalitatem Spiritus sancti qui obseruauerit, ab ipso deducetur in sensus eius. Haereticam enim feminam, quae quod didicerat a Nicolaitis docere susceperat, in ecclesiam latenter introducebat et merito ad paenitentiam urgebat.

[4] Whoever shall have observed this equality of the Holy Spirit, by him he will be led into his understanding. For he was secretly introducing into the church a heretical woman, who had undertaken to teach what she had learned from the Nicolaitans, and rightly he was pressing her to penitence.

[5] Cui enim dubium est haereticum institutione deceptum cognito postmodum casu et paenitentia expiato et ueniam consequi et in ecclesiam redigi? Vnde et apud nos, ut ethnico par, immo et super ethnicum, haereticus etiam per baptisma ueritatis utroque nomine purgatus admittitur.

[5] To whom is it a doubt that a heretic, deceived by instruction, the fall afterward recognized and expiated by penitence, both obtains pardon and is brought back into the church? Whence also among us, as equal to the Gentile, nay even above the Gentile, the heretic too, through the baptism of truth, cleansed under both names, is admitted.

[6] Aut si certus es mulierem illam post fidem uiuam in haeresi postea exspirasse, ut non quasi haereticae, sed quasi fideli peccatrici cui ueniam ex paenitentia uindices, sane agat paenitentiam, sed in finem moechiae, non tamen et restitutionem consecutura. Haec enim erit paenitentia, quam et nos deberi quidem agnoscimus multo magis, sed de uenia Deo reseruamus.

[6] Or if you are certain that that woman, after a living faith, afterwards expired in heresy, so that you would vindicate not as for a heretical woman, but as for a faithful sinner to whom you vindicate pardon from penitence, let her indeed do penitence, but to the end for adultery, yet not also going to obtain restitution. For this will be penitence, which we too indeed acknowledge to be owed much more, but as to pardon we reserve it to God.

[7] Denique eadem Apocalypsis in posterioribus propudiosos et fornicatores, sicut timidos et incredulos et homicidas et ueneficos et idololatras, qui tale quid in fide fuerint, in stagnum ignis sine ulla condicionali damnatione decreuit.

[7] Finally, the same Apocalypse in the latter parts has decreed the shameless and the fornicators, just as the timid and the incredulous and the homicides and the venefic poisoners/sorcerers and the idololaters, who shall have been such within the Faith, to the lake of fire, without any conditional condemnation.

[8] Non enim de ethnicis uidebitur sapere, cum de fidelibus pronuntiauit:Qui uicerint, hereditate habebunt ista, et ero illis Deus, et illi mihi in filios, et ita subiunxent: Timidis autem et incredulis et propudiosis et fornicatoribus et homicidis et ueneficis et idololatris particula in stagno ignis et sulphuris., quod est mors secunda.

[8] For he will not seem to be speaking about the ethnics, since he pronounced concerning the faithful:Those who overcome will have these things in inheritance, and I will be God to them, and they to me for sons, and thus he subjoined: but for the timid and the incredulous and the abominable and fornicators and murderers and venefics and idololaters, a portion in the lake of fire and sulfur., which is the second death.

[9] Sic et rursus:Beati qui ex praeceptis agunt, ut in lignum uitae habeant potestatem et in portas ad introeundum in sanctam ciuitatem. Canes, uenefici, fornicator, homicida foras, utique qui non ex praeceptis agant. Illorum est enim foras dari qui intus fuerunt.

[9] Thus
and again: Blessed are those who act from the precepts, that they may have
power unto the tree of life and, at the gates, to enter into the holy city. Dogs, poisoners,
fornicator, murderer, outside, to be sure, those who do not act from the precepts. For it is
theirs, who have been within, to be cast outside.

Ceterum quid mihi eos, qui foris sunt, iudicare ? praecesserat.

Moreover what is it to me to judge those who are outside, ? had preceded.

[10] De epistola quoque Iohannis carpunt. Statim dictum est:Sanguis filii eius emundat nos ab omni delicto. Semper ergo et omnifariam delinquemus, si semper et ab omni delicto emundat nos ille; aut si non semper, non etiam post fidem, et si non ab omni delicto, non etiam a fornicatione.

[10] They carp also about the epistle of John. Straightway it is said:The blood of his Son cleanses us from every offense. Therefore shall we always and in every way transgress, if he always and from every offense cleanses us; or if not always, then not even after faith, and if not from every offense, then not even from fornication.

[11] Vnde autem exorsus est? Lumen praedixerat Deum et tenebras non esse in illo et mentiri nos, si dicamus nos communionem habere cum eo et in tenebris incedamus.Si uero, inquit, in lumine incedamus, communionem cum eo habebimus, et sanguis Iesu Christi Domini nostri emundat nos ab omni delicto.

[11] But whence did he begin? He had pre-declared God as light and that there is no darkness in him, and that we lie, if we say that we have communion with him and we walk in darkness.But if, he says, we walk in the light, we shall have communion with him, and the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord cleanses us from every sin.

[12] Ergo in lumine incedentes delinquimus et in lumine delinquentes emundabimur? Nullo pacto. Qui enim delinquit, non in lumine est, sed in tenebris.

[12] Therefore, walking in the light do we sin, and, sinning in the light, shall we be cleansed? By no means. For he who sins is not in the light, but in the darkness.

Vnde et ostendit, quomodo emundabimur a delicto in lumine incedentes in quo delictum agi non potest. A Deo sic emundari nos ait, non quasi delinquamus, sed quia non delinquamus.

Whence also he showed, how we shall be cleansed from delict while walking in the light, in which a delict cannot be committed. He says that we are thus cleansed by God, not as if we sin, but because we do not sin.

[13] Incedentes enim in lumine, tenebris uero non communicantes, emundati agemus, non deposito, sed non admisso delicto. Haec est enim uis dominici sanguinis, ut quos iam delicto mundarit et exinde in lumine constituerit, mundos exinde perstare, si in lumine incedere perseuerauerint.

[13] For those walking

indeed in the light, not sharing with the darkness, we will conduct ourselves as cleansed, not with sin laid aside,

but with sin not admitted. For this is the power of the Lord’s blood, that those whom already

from sin it has cleansed and thereafter has set in the light, should remain clean thereafter,

if they have persevered to walk in the light.

[14] Sed subicit, inquis,si dicamus nos delictum non habere, seducimus nosmetipsos, et ueritas non est in nobis. Si confitemur delicta nostra, fidelis et iustus est, ut dimittat ea nobis et emundet nos ab omni iniustitia.

[14] But, you say, he adds,if we say that we do not have a delict, we seduce ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our delicts, he is faithful and just, so that he may remit them to us and cleanse us from all injustice.

[15] Numquid ab immunditia? Aut si ita est, ergo et ab idololatria? Sed aliud in sensu est.

[15] Is it perhaps from uncleanness? Or if it is so, then also from idolatry? But the sense is otherwise.

Ecce enim et rursus, si dicamus, ait, nos non deliquisse, mendacem facimus illum, et sermo eius non est in nobis.

Behold indeed and again, if we say, he says, that we have not transgressed, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

[16] Eo amplius,filioli, haec scripsi uobis, ne delinquatis, et si deliqueritis, aduocatum habemus apud Deum patrem, Iesum Christum iustum, et ipse placatio est pro delictis nostris. Secundum haec, inquis, et delinquere nos et ueniam habere constabit.

[16] So much the more,my little sons, I have written these things to you, that you may not transgress; and if you should transgress, we have an advocate with God the Father, Jesus Christ the just, and he himself is the placation for our delicts. According to these things, you say, it will be established both that we transgress and that we have pardon.

[17] Quid ergo fiet, cum procedens aliud inuenio? Negat enim nos omnino delinquere, et in hoc plurimum tractat, ut nihil tale concedat, proponens semel a Christo delicta deleta, non habitura postea ueniam, in quo hos sensus ad admonitionem castimoniae demandat.

[17] What then will happen, when, as I proceed, I find something else? For he denies that we sin at all, and in this he treats very much, so as to concede nothing of the sort, proposing delicts once blotted out by Christ not to have pardon thereafter, in which he consigns these senses to an admonition of chastity.

[18]Omnis, inquit, qui habet spem istam, castificat semetipsum, quia et ille castus est. Omnis qui facit delictum, et iniquitatem facit, et delictum est iniquitas. Et scitis quod ille manifestatus sit, ut auferat delicta, utique hactenus admittenda.

[18]Every, he says, who has this hope purifies himself, because he also is chaste is. Everyone who does sin also does iniquity, and sin is iniquity. And you know that he has been manifested, to take away sins, assuredly thus far to be admitted.

[19] Siquidem subiungit:Omnis, qui manet in illo, non delinquet. Omnis qui delinquit, neque uidit neque cognouit eum. Filioli, nemo uos seducat.

[19] Indeed he subjoins:Everyone who abides in him will not commit a delict. Everyone who commits a delict has neither seen nor known him. Little sons, let no one seduce you.

Omnis qui facit iustitiam, iustus est, sicut et ille iustus est. Qui facit delictum, ex diabolo est, quoniam diabolus a primordio delinquit. In hoc enim manifestatus est filius Dei, ut soluat opera diaboli.

Everyone who does

justice is just, just as he also is just. He who commits a delict is from the devil,

since the devil sins from the beginning. For in this the Son

of God has been manifested, that he may dissolve the works of the devil.

[20] Nam et soluit liberans hominem per lauacrum donato ei chirographo mortis.Et ideo omnis, qui ex Deo nascitur non facit delictum, quia semen Dei manet in illo, et non potest delinquere, quia ex Deo natus est. In hoc manifesti sunt filii Dei et filii diaboli.

[20] For he also loosed, freeing the human being through the laver, the chirograph of death having been granted to him.And therefore everyone who is born of God does not commit a delict, because the seed of God remains in him, and he is not able to delinque, because he has been born of God. In this the sons of God are manifest and the sons of the devil.

[21] In quo, nisi illi non delinquendo, ex quo de Deo nati sunt, isti delinquendo, quia de diabolo sunt, proinde atque si numquam sint ex Deo nati? Quod si dicit,qui non est iustus, ex Deo non est, qui non pudicus, quomodo rursus ex Deo fiet, qui iam esse desiit?

[21] In what, unless those by not sinning, since they have been born of God, these by sinning, because they are of the devil, just as if they had never been born of God? But if he says,who is not righteous, is not of God, he who is not chaste, how will he again become of God, who has already ceased to be?

[22] Iuxta est igitur ut excidisse sibi dicamus Iohannem in primore quidem epistola negantem nos sine delicto esse, nunc uero praescribentem non delinquere omnino, et illic quidem aliquid de uenia blandientem, hic uero districte negantem filios Dei quicumque deliquerint.

[22] It is close at hand, therefore, to say that John has fallen out with himself: in the former epistle indeed denying that we are without sin, but now prescribing not to sin altogether, and there indeed speaking somewhat soothingly of pardon, but here strictly denying as sons of God whoever have sinned.

[23] Sed absit. Nam nec ipsi excidimus a qua digressi sumus distinctione delictorum. Et hic enim illam Iohannes commendauit, quod sint quaedam delicta cotidianae incursionis, quibus omnes simus obiecti.

[23] But far be it. For neither do we ourselves fall away from the distinction of delicts from which we have departed. And here too John commended it, namely that there are certain delicts of quotidian incursion, to which we all are exposed.

[24] Cui enim non accidet aut irasci inique et ultra solis occasum, aut et manum immittere aut facile maledicere aut temere iurare aut fidem pacti destruere aut uerecundia aut necessitate mentiri? In negotiis, in officiis, in quaestu, in uictu, in uisu, in auditu quanta temptamur? Vt, si nulla sit uenia istorum, nemini salus competat.

[24] For whom
will it not happen either to be angry unjustly and beyond the setting of the sun, or even to lay
hands, or to revile easily, or to swear rashly, or to destroy the faith of a pact, or
to lie from shame or from necessity? In business, in offices, in gain, in
living, in sight, in hearing, how greatly are we tempted? So that, if there be no pardon of these,
salvation would belong to no one.

[25] Horum ergo erit uenia per exoratorem Patris Christum. Sunt autem et contraria istis, ut grauiora et exitiosa, quae ueniam non capiant, homicidium, idololatria, fraus, negatio, blasphemia, utique et moechia et fornicatio, et si qua alia uiolatio templi Dei.

[25] Of these

therefore there will be pardon through Christ, the Intercessor with the Father. But there are also things contrary to these,

as graver and destructive, which do not receive pardon, homicide, idolatry,

fraud, denial, blasphemy, and of course adultery and fornication, and whatever other

violation of the temple of God.

[26] Horum ultra exorator non erit Christus; haec non admittet omnino, qui natus ex Deo fuerit, non futurus Dei filius, si admiserit. Ita Iohannis ratio constabit diuersitatis, distinctionem delictorum disponentis, cum delinquere filios Dei nunc adnuit, nunc abnuit.

[26] For these beyond, the intercessor will not be Christ; these the one who has been born of God will not admit at all, not going to be a son of God if he admits them. Thus John’s rationale will stand of diversity, arranging a distinction of delicts, since that the sons of God sin he now nods assent to, now denies.

[27] Prospiciebat enim clausulam litterarum suarum, et illi praestruebat hos sensus dicturus in fine manifestius:Si quis scit fratrem suum delinquere delictum non ad mortem, postulabit, et dabit ei uitam Dominus, qui non ad mortem delinquit. Est enim delictum ad mortem; non de eo dico, ut quis postulet.

[27] He was looking ahead indeed to the closing clause of his letters, and was pre‑structuring these senses for it, about to say more manifestly at the end:If anyone knows his brother to be committing a delict not unto death, he will petition, and the Lord will give him life, to the one who sins not unto death. For there is a delict unto death; I am not saying concerning that, that anyone should petition.

[28] Meminerat et ipse Hieremiam prohibitum a Deo deprecari pro populo mortalia delinquente.Omnis iniustitia delictum est, et est delictum ad mortem. Scimus autem, quod omnis, qui ex Deo natus sit, non delinquit, scilicet delictum quod ad mortem est.

[28] He himself had remembered Jeremiah too as forbidden by God to intercede for the people sinning mortally.Every injustice is a delict, and there is a delict unto death. But we know that everyone, who has been born of God, does not commit a delict, namely the delict which is unto death.

Ita nihil iam superest quam aut neges moechiam et fornicationem mortalia esse delicta, aut inremissibilia fatearis, pro quibus nec exorare permittitur.

Thus nothing now remains except either that you deny that adultery and fornication are mortal delicts, or that you confess them to be irremissible, for which it is not permitted even to intercede.

XX.

20.

[1] Disciplina igitur apostolorum proprie quidem instruit ac determinat principaliter sanctitatis omnis erga templum Dei sacramentum et ubique de ecclesia eradicat omne sacrilegium impudicitiae sine ulla restitutionis mentione. Volo tamen ex redundanti alicuius etiam comitis apostolorum testimonium superducere, idoneum confirmandi de proximo iure disciplinam magistrorum.

[1] The discipline therefore of the apostles properly indeed instructs and primarily determines the sacrament of all sanctity toward the temple of God, and everywhere out of the church it eradicates every sacrilege of unchastity without any mention of restitution. I wish, however, out of abundance to bring in also the testimony of some companion of the apostles, suitable for confirming, by the nearest authority, the discipline of the masters.

[2] Extat enim et Barnabae titulus ad Hebraeos, a Deo satis auctorati uiri, ut quem Paulus iuxta se constituerit in abstinentiae tenore:Aut ego solus et Barnabas non habemus operandi potestatem? Et utique receptior apud ecclesias epistola Barnabae illo apocrypho Pastore moechorum.

[2] There exists indeed also Barnabas’s title To the Hebrews, of a man sufficiently authorized by God, as one whom Paul set alongside himself in the tenor of abstinence:Or is it only I and Barnabas who do not have the power of working? And assuredly more received among the churches is the epistle of Barnabas than that apocryphal Shepherd of adulterers.

[3] Monens itaque discipulos omissis omnibus initiis ad perfectionem magis tendere nec rursus fundamenta paenitentiae iacere ab operibus mortuorum,impossibile est enim, inquit, eos qui semel inluminati sunt et donum caeleste gustauerunt et participauerunt Spiritum sanctum et uerbum Dei dulce gustauerunt, occidente iam aeuo cum exciderint, rursus reuocari in paenitentiam, refigentes cruci in semetipsos filium Dei et dedecorantes.

[3] Admonishing therefore the disciples, with all beginnings omitted, to tend rather toward perfection and not again to lay the foundations of repentance from dead works,it is impossible indeed, he says, for those who have once been illuminated and have tasted the celestial gift and have partaken of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the sweet word of God, with the age now declining, when they have fallen away, to be recalled again into repentance, re-fixing to the cross for themselves the Son of God and disgracing him.

[4]Terra enim quae bibit saepius deuenientem in se humorem et peperit herbam aptam his propter quos et colitur, benedictionem Dei consequitur; proferens autem spinas reproba et maledictioni proxima, cuius finis in exustionem.

[4]For the earth which drinks often the moisture coming down into it and has borne herb apt for those for whose sake it is also cultivated, obtains the benediction of God; but bringing forth thorns it is reprobate and near to a malediction, whose end is into burning.

[5] Hoc qui ab apostolis didicit et cum apostolis docuit, numquam moecho et fornicatori secundam paenitentiam promissam ab apostolis norat. Optime enim legem interpretabatur et figuras eius iam in ipsa ueritate seruabat.

[5] This who learned from the apostles and taught with the apostles, never had known a second penitence promised by the apostles to an adulterer and a fornicator. For he interpreted the law most excellently and was already observing its figures in verity itself.

[6] Ad hanc denique speciem disciplinae de leproso cautum fuit:Si autem uarietas effloruerit in cutem et totam cutem texerit a capite usque ad pedes per omnem conspectum, et sacerdos cum uiderit, emundabit eum, quoniam conuertit in album, mundus est. Qua uero die uisus fuerit in eiusmodi color uiuus, inquinatus est.

[6] To this, then, very form of discipline it was provided concerning the leper:But if the variegation has blossomed forth in the skin and has woven over the whole skin from head to feet in every visible part, and when the priest has seen, he shall cleanse him, because it has turned into white, he is clean. But on the day when there shall have been seen a living (i.e., raw) color of such a sort, he is defiled.

[7] Conuersum enim hominem de pristino carnis habitu in candorem fidei, quae uitium et macula aestimatur in saeculo, et totum nouatum mundum uoluit intellegi, qui iam non sit uarius, non sit de pristino et nouo aspersus. Si uero post abolitionem in uetustatem aliquid ex illa reuixerit, rursum in carne eius quod emortuum delicto habebatur immundum iudicari nec expiari iam a sacerdote. Ita moechia de pristino recidiua et unitatem noui coloris, a quo fuerat exclusa, commaculans immundabile est uitium.

[7] For a man turned from the pristine habit of the flesh into the whiteness of faith—which is reckoned a vice and a stain in the world—and he wished the whole renewed man, pure, to be understood, who now should not be variegated, should not be sprinkled with both the pristine and the new. If, however, after the abolition something of that should revive into oldness, then again in his flesh that which had been held as dead to sin is to be judged unclean, nor is it now to be expiated by the priest. Thus adultery, a relapse from the pristine, staining the unity of the new color from which it had been excluded, is a vice not capable of being cleansed.

[8] Item de domo:Si quae maculae et cauositates adnuntiatae in parietibus sacerdoti fuissent, priusquam introiret ad inspiciendam eam, iubet auferri de domo omnia, ita immunda non futura quae domus essent.

[8] Likewise concerning the house:If any stains and cavities had been announced in the walls to the priest, before he should enter to inspect it, he orders that everything be removed from the house, so that not unclean would become the things which were in the house.

[9]Dehinc introgressus sacerdos si inuenisset cauositates uiridicantes nel rubescentes, et aspectum earum humiliorem citra parietinam formam, exiret ad ianuam et secerneret domum illam septem diebus. Dehinc die septima regressus si animaduertisset diffusum in parietibus tactum illum, imperaret exterminari eos lapides, in quibus tactus leprae fuisset, et abici extra ciuitatem in locum immundum, et sumi alios lapides politos et solidos et reponi loco pristinorum et puluere alio inliniri domum.

[9]Thereafter having entered, the priest, if he had found cavities greenish or reddening, and the aspect of them lower, beneath the wall’s surface, he should go out to the door and set that house apart for seven days. Thereafter, on the seventh day, having returned, if he had observed that that touch had spread on the walls, he should command those stones, in which the touch of leprosy had been, to be exterminated, and to be cast outside the city into an unclean place, and that other stones, polished and solid, be taken and set back in place of the former, and that the house be smeared with other dust.

[10] Oportet enim, cum peruenitur ad summum sacerdotem Patris Christum, de domo hominis nostri in tempore hebdomadis auferri omnia impedimenta prius, ut munda sit quae remanet domus, caro et anima, ut ubi introierit eam sermo Dei et inuenerit maculas ruboris et uiroris, extrahi statim et abici foras sensus mortiferos et cruentos (nam et Apocalypsis uiridi equo mortem, russeo autem praeliatorem imposuit), proque illis politos et in compaginem aptos et firmos substrui lapides, quales in Abrahae , fiunt, ut ita homo habilis Deo sit.

[10] For it is necessary,

when one comes to the high priest of the Father, Christ, that from the house of our man, in the time of the hebdomad, all impediments first be removed, so that the house which remains, flesh and soul, may be clean, so that when the Word of God shall have entered it and found spots of redness and greenness, the mortiferous and bloody senses be drawn out at once and cast outside (for the Apocalypse set Death upon a green horse, but upon a red one a warrior), and in place of those there be laid as a substructure stones polished and apt to the compagination and firm, such as are made into Abraham’s <sons>, so that thus the man may be fit for God.

[11] Quod si post recuperationem et reformationem rursus sacerdos animaduerterit in eadem domo de pristinis cauis aliquid et maculis, immundam eam pronuntiauit, et iussit deponi materias et lapides et omnem structuram eius et abici in locum immundum.

[11] But if after the recuperation and reformation the priest shall have observed again in the same
house something of the former hollows and stains, he pronounced it unclean, and ordered
the materials and the stones and all its structure to be taken down and to be thrown away into an unclean place.

[12] Hic erit homo caro atque anima, qui post baptisma et introitum sacerdotum reformatus denuo resumit scabra et maculas carnis, et abicitur extra ciuitatem in locum immundum, deditus scilicet satanae in carnis interitum, nec amplius reaedificatur in ecclesia post ruinam.

[12] This will be the man, flesh and soul, who after baptism and the entrance of the priests, having been reformed, again resumes the scabs and stains of the flesh, and is cast outside the city into an unclean place, given up, namely, to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, nor any longer is re-edified in the Church after the ruin.

[13] Sic et de famulae concubitu, quae homini esset reseruata, necdum redempta, necdum liberata.Prospicietur, inquit, illi et non morietur, quia nondum est manumissa, cui seruabatur. Nondum enim caro a Christo manumissa, cui seruabatur, impune contaminabatur, ita iam manumissa non habet ueniam.

[13] Thus
also concerning the concubinage of a handmaid, who was reserved for a man, not yet redeemed, not yet
liberated. Consideration shall be had for her, he says, and she will not die, because she has not yet been
manumitted to the one for whom she was being reserved. For the flesh not yet manumitted by Christ, for whom
it was being reserved, was being contaminated with impunity; thus, now manumitted, it does not have pardon.

XXI.

21.

[1] Haec si apostoli magis norant, magis utique curabant. Sed et in hunc iam gradum decurram, excernens inter doctrinam apostolorum et potestatem. Disciplina hominem gubernat, potestas adsignat.

[1] These things,

if the apostles knew them more, they certainly cared the more. But I will also now descend to this step,

distinguishing between the doctrine of the apostles and power. Discipline

governs a man; power assigns.

Sed rursum quid potestas? <Spiritus>. Spiritus autem Deus.

But again, what is power? <Spirit>. But the Spirit is God.

[2] Quid autem docebat? Non communicandum operibus tenebrarum. Obserua quod iubet.

[2] What however was he teaching? Not to communicate with the works of darkness. Observe what he commands.

Quis autem poterat donare delicta? Hoc solius ipsius est. Quis enim dimittit delicta, ni solus Deus ? Et utique mortalia, quae in ipsum fuerint admissa et in templum eius?

Who, moreover, could forgive sins? This is his alone. For who indeed forgives sins, if not God alone ? And assuredly the mortal ones, which have been committed against him and against his temple?

[3] Nam tibi quae in te reatum habeant etiam septuagies septies iuberis indulgere in persona Petri. Itaque si et ipsos beatos apostolos tale aliquid indulsisse constaret, cuius uenia a Deo, non ab homine competeret, non ex disciplina, sed ex potestate fecissent.

[3] For
you are commanded, in the person of Peter, to grant indulgence even seventy times seven times to
those things which have a charge of guilt against you. And so, if the blessed apostles themselves
had been shown to have indulged something of this sort, whose pardon would pertain to God, not to man,
they would have done it not from discipline, but from power.

[4] Nam et mortuos suscitauerunt, quod Deus solus, et debiles redintegrauerunt, quod nemo nisi Christus, immo et plagas inflixerunt, quod noluit Christus. Non enim decebat eum saeuire qui pati uenerat. Percussus est Ananias et Elimas, Ananias morte, Elimas caecitate, ut hoc ipso probaretur Christum et haec facere potuisse.

[4] For they also resuscitated the dead, which God alone [does], and redintegrated the disabled, which no one except Christ [does]; nay, they even inflicted stripes, which Christ did not will. For it was not becoming for him to be savage who had come to suffer. Ananias and Elimas were struck, Ananias with death, Elimas with blindness, so that by this very thing it might be proved that Christ also could do these things.

[5] Sic et prophetae caedem et cum ea moechiam paenitentibus ignouerant, quia et seueritatis documenta fecerunt.

[5] Thus also the prophets had forgiven homicide and, along with it, adultery, to penitents, because they also made demonstrations of severity.

Exhibe igitur et nunc mihi, apostolice, prophetica exempla, ut agnoscam diuinitatem, et uindica tibi delictorum eiusmodi remittendorum potestatem.

Therefore display even now to me, apostolic one, prophetic examples, that I may acknowledge
divinity, and claim for yourself the power of remitting delicts of this kind.

[6] Quod si disciplinae solius officia sortitus est, nec imperio praesidere, sed ministerio, quis aut quantus es indulgere, qui neque prophetam nec apostolum exhibens cares ea uirtute cuius est indulgere?

[6] But if he has been allotted the offices of discipline alone, and to preside not by command but by ministry, who are you, or how great, to grant indulgence, who, adducing neither prophet nor apostle, lack that power whose office it is to grant indulgence?

[7] « Sed habet, inquis, potestatem ecclesia delicta donandi. » Hoc ego magis et agnosco et dispono, qui ipsum Paracletum in prophetis nouis habeo dicentem: « Potest ecclesia donare delictum, sed non faciam, ne et alia delinquant. »

[7] « But, you say, the church has the power of granting pardon for delicts. » This I the more both acknowledge and set forth, since I have the very Paraclete in the new prophets saying: « The church can grant pardon for the delict, but I will not do it, lest they also commit other delicts. »

[8] Quid, si pseudopropheticus spiritus pronuntiauit? atqui magis euersoris fuisset et semetipsum de clementia commendare et ceteros ad delinquentiam temperare. Aut si et hoc secundum spiritum ueritatis adfectare gestiuit, ergo spiritus ueritatis potest quidem indulgere fornicatoribus ueniam, sed cum plurium malo non uult.

[8] What, if a pseudo-prophetic spirit pronounced it? Yet rather it would have been the part of a subverter both to commend himself for clemency and to encourage the others to delinquency. Or if even this he was eager to attempt according to the Spirit of truth, then the Spirit of truth indeed can grant pardon to fornicators, but he does not will it when it is with the harm of the majority.

[9] De tua nunc sententia quaero, unde hoc ius ecclesiae usurpes. Si quia dixerit Petro Dominus:Super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam, tibi dedi claues regni caelestis, uel: Quaecumque alligaueris uel solueris in terra, erunt alligata uel soluta in caelis, idcirco praesumis et ad te deriuasse soluendi et alligandi potestatem, id est ad omnem ecclesiam Petri prouinciam,

[9] I now inquire of your opinion,

whence you usurp this right of the church. If because the Lord said to Peter: Upon
this rock I will build my church, I have given to you the keys of the celestial kingdom, or:
Whatever you shall bind or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in
the heavens, therefore you presume and claim that the power of loosing and binding has been derived to yourself, that is, to the whole church, the province of Peter,

[10] qualis es, euertens atque commutans manifestam Domini intentionem personaliter hoc Petro conferentem?Super te, inquit, aedificabo ecclesiam meam, et: Dabo tibi claues, non ecclesiae, et: Quaecumque solueris uel alligaueris, non quae soluerint uel alligauerint.

[10] what sort are you, everting and commutating the manifest intention of the Lord personally conferring this upon Peter?Upon you, he says, I will edify my church, and: I will give to you the keys, not to the church, and: Whatever you shall loose or bind, not what they shall have loosed or bound.

[11] Sic enim et exitus docet. In ipso ecclesia extructa est id est per ipsum, ipse clauem imbuit, uides quam:Viri Israelitae, auribus mandate quae dico: Iesum nazarenum uirum a Deo uobis destinatum, et reliqua.

[11] Thus indeed the outcome also teaches. In him the church has been constructed, that is, through him; he himself put the key into use, you see which:Men of Israel, commit to your ears what I say: Jesus the nazarene, a man destined by God for you, and the rest.

[12] Ipse denique primus in Christi baptismo reserauit aditum caelestis regni, quo soluuntur alligata retro delicta et alligantur quae non fuerint soluta, secundum ueram salutem, et Ananiam uinxit uinculo mortis et debilem pedibus absoluit uitio ualetudinis.

[12] He himself,

finally, was the first in the baptism of Christ to unbar the access of the heavenly kingdom, whereby

the sins bound in times past are loosed and those which had not been loosed are bound, according

to true salvation, and he bound Ananias with the bond of death and absolved the man lame in his feet

from the defect of health.

[13] Sed et in illa disceptatione custodiendae legis primus omnium Petrus spiritu instinctus et de nationum uocatione praefatus,et nunc, inquit, cur temptastis Dominum de imponendo iugo fratribus, quod neque nos neque patres nostri sufferre ualuerunt? Sed enim per gratiam Iesu credimus nos salutem consecuturos, sicut et illi.

[13] But also in that dispute about the keeping of the law, Peter before all others, inspired by the Spirit and having prefaced concerning the vocation of the nations,and now, he says, why did you test the Lord by imposing a yoke upon the brothers, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear? But indeed through the grace of Jesus we believe that we will obtain salvation, just as they also.

[14] Haec sententia et soluit quae omissa sunt legis et alligauit quae reseruata sunt. Adeo nihil ad delicta fidelium capitalia potestas soluendi et alligandi Petro emancipata.

[14] This sentence both loosed the things of the Law that have been omitted and bound the things that have been reserved. Accordingly, as regards the capital offenses of the faithful, the power of loosing and of binding was by no means emancipated to Peter emancipated.

[15] Cui si praeceperat Dominus etiam septuagies septies delinquenti in eum fratri indulgere, utique nihil postea alligare id est retinere mandasset, nisi forte ea quae in Dominum, non in fratrem, quis admiserit. Praeiudicatur enim non dimittenda in Deum delicta, cum in homine admissa donantur.

[15] To whom, if the Lord had enjoined to indulge even a brother delinquent against him seventy times seven, of course he would have commanded thereafter to bind—that is, to retain—nothing, unless perhaps those things which someone has committed against the Lord, not against a brother. For a precedent is set that delicts against God are not to be remitted, since those committed against a man are pardoned.

[16] Quid nunc et ad ecclesiam et quidem tuam, psychice? Secundum enim Petri personam spiritalibus potestas ista conueniet, aut apostolo aut prophetae. Nam et ipsa ecclesia proprie et principaliter ipse est spiritus, in quo est trinitas unius diuinitatis, Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus.

[16] What now also as to
the church, and indeed your own, psychic? For according to Peter’s person this power will belong to the spirituals,
either to an apostle or to a prophet. For the church itself,
properly and principally, is itself the Spirit, in whom is the Trinity of one
divinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Illam ecclesiam congregat quam Dominus in tribus posuit.

He congregates that church which the Lord placed in the three.

[17] Atque ita exinde etiam numerus omnis qui in hanc fidem conspirauerint ecclesia ab auctore et consecratore censetur. Et ideo ecclesia quidem delicta donabit, sed ecclesia spiritus per spiritalem hominem, non ecclesia numerus episcoporum. Domini enim, non famuli est ius et arbitrium; Dei ipsius, non sacerdotis.

[17] And thus from there even the whole number of those who have conspired together into this faith is reckoned Church by the Author and Consecrator. And therefore the church indeed will forgive sins, but the church of the Spirit through the spiritual man, not the church, the number of bishops. For the right and the discretion are the Lord’s, not the servant’s; God’s own, not the priest’s.

XXII.

22.

[1] At tu iam et in martyras tuos effundis hanc potestatem. Vt quisque ex consensione uincula induit adhuc mollia in nouo custodiae nomine, statim ambiunt moechi, statim adeunt fornicatores, iam preces circumsonant, iam lacrimae circumstagnant maculati cuiusque, nec ulli magis aditum carceris redimunt quam qui ecclesiam perdiderunt.

[1] But you now even pour out this power upon your martyrs. As soon as anyone, by agreement, puts on bonds still soft under the new name of custody, at once adulterers court them, at once fornicators approach; already prayers resound around, already the tears of each defiled person pool around, and none purchase access to the prison more than those who have lost the church.

[2] Violantur uiri ac feminae in tenebris plane ex usu libidinum notis, et pacem ab his quaerunt qui de sua periclitantur. Alii ad metalla confugiunt et inde communicatores reuertuntur, ubi iam aliud martyrium necessarium est delictis post martyrium nouis.

[2] Men and women are violated in the darkness, plainly in keeping with the notorious usages of lusts, and they seek peace from those
who are themselves imperiled concerning their own standing. Others flee to the mines and from there
return as communicators, where now another martyrdom is necessary for sins
new after martyrdom.

[3] Quis enim in terris et in carne sine culpa? Quis martyr saeculi incola, denariis supplex, medico obnoxius et feneratori? Puta nunc sub gladio iam capite librato, puta in patibulo iam corpore expanso, puta in stipite iam leone concesso, puta in axe iam incendio adstructo, in ipsa, dico, securitate et possessione martyrii, quis permittit homini donare quae Deo reseruanda sunt, a quo ea sine excusatione damnata sunt, quae nec apostoli, quod sciam, martyres et ipsi donabilia iudicauerunt?

[3] Who For who on earth and in flesh is without fault? What martyr, a dweller of the age, with denarii a suppliant, subject to the physician and to the moneylender? Suppose now, under the sword with the head already poised; suppose on the gibbet with the body already stretched; suppose at the stake with the lion already assigned; suppose on the wheel with the fire already heaped up— in the very, I say, security and possession of martyrdom, who permits a man to grant the things that are to be reserved for God, by whom these things have been condemned without excuse— things which neither the apostles, so far as I know, nor the martyrs themselves judged grantable?

[4] Denique iam ad bestias depugnauerat Paulus Ephesi, cum interitum decernit incesto.

[4] Finally Paul at Ephesus had already fought with beasts, when he decrees destruction for the incestuous man.

Sufficiat martyri propria delicta purgasse. Ingrati uel superbi est in alios quoque spargere, quod pro magno fuerit consecutus. Quis alienam mortem sua soluit, nisi solus Dei filius?

Let it suffice for the martyr to have purged his own delicts. It is the mark of an ingrate or a proud man to scatter upon others also what he has obtained as something great. Who pays off another’s death with his own, unless the Son of God alone?

Nam et in ipsa passione liberauit latronem. Ad hoc enim uenerat, ut ipse a delicto purus et omnia sanctus pro peccatoribus obiret.

For even in the very passion he liberated the thief. To this end, indeed, he had come, that he himself, pure from delict and altogether holy, on behalf of sinners might meet death.

[5] Proinde qui illum aemularis donando delicta, si nil ipse deliquisti, plane patere pro me. Si uero peccator es, quomodo oleum faculae tuae sufficere et tibi et mihi poterit?

[5] Accordingly, you who emulate him by forgiving delicts, if you yourself have committed nothing, plainly suffer on my behalf. But if indeed you are a sinner, how will the oil of your torch be able to suffice both for you and for me?

[6] Habeo etiam nunc quo probem Christum. Si propterea Christus in martyre est, ut moechos et fornicatores martyr absoluat, occulta cordis edicat, ut ita delicta concedat, et Christus est.

[6] I have even now wherewith to prove Christ. If for this reason Christ is in the martyr, that the martyr may absolve adulterers and fornicators, may bring to light the hidden things of the heart, so that thus he may grant pardon for offenses, then he is indeed Christ.

[7] Sic enim Dominus Iesus Christus potestatem suam ostendit:Quid cogitatis nequam in cordibus uestris? Quid enim facilius est dicere paralytico: dimittuntur tibi peccata, aut: surge et ambula? Igitur ut sciatis filium hominis habere dimittendorum peccatorum in terris potestatem, tibi dico, paralytice: surge et ambula.

[7] For thus the Lord Jesus Christ shows his authority:Why do you think wicked things in your hearts? For what is easier, to say to the paralytic: your sins are forgiven you, or: arise and walk? Therefore, that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to remit sins, I say to you, paralytic: arise and walk.

[8] Si Dominus tantum de potestatis suae probatione curauit, uti traduceret cogitatus et ita imperaret sanitatem, ne non crederetur posse delicta dimittere, non licet mihi eandem potestatem in aliquo sine eisdem probationibus credere.

[8] If the Lord cared only for the proof of his power, to bring thoughts to light and thus to command health, lest it should not be believed that he was able to remit sins, it is not permitted to me to believe the same power in anyone without the same proofs.

[9] Cum tamen moechis et fornicatoribus a martyre expostulas ueniam, ipse confiteris eiusmodi crimina nonnisi proprio martyrio diluenda, qui praesumis alieno. Quod sciam, et martyrium aliud erit baptisma.

[9] Yet, when you demand pardon from a martyr for adulterers and fornicators, you yourself confess that crimes of this sort are to be washed away by nothing except one’s own martyrdom—you who presume upon another’s. As far as I know, even martyrdom will be another baptism.

[10]Habeo enim, inquit, et aliud baptisma. Vnde et ex uulnere lateris dominici aqua et sanguis, utriusque lauacri paratura manauit.

[10]I have indeed, he says, also another baptism. Whence also from the wound of the Lord’s side water and blood flowed, a preparation for each laver.

[11] Debeo ergo et primo lauacro alium liberare, si possum secundo.

[11] I ought therefore also to free another by the first laver, if I can by the second.

Ingeram usque in finem necesse est: quaecumque auctoritas, quaecumque ratio moecho et fornicatori pacem ecclesiasticam reddit, eadem debebit et homicidae et idololatrae paenitentibus subuenire, certe negatori, et utique illi, quem in proelio confessionis tormentis conluctatum saeuitia deiecit.

I must keep insisting to the end: whatever authority, whatever reason restores ecclesiastical peace to the adulterer and the fornicator, the same ought also to come to the aid of the penitent murderer and idolater, certainly to the denier, and assuredly to him whom, in the battle of confession, after wrestling with torments, savagery cast down.

[12] Ceterum indignum Deo et illius misericordia, eius qui paenitentiam peccatoris morti praeuertit, ut facilius in ecclesiam redeant, qui subando quam qui dimicando ceciderunt. Vrget nos dicere indignitas: contaminata potius corpora reuocabis quam cruentata?

[12] Moreover,

it is unworthy of God and of His mercy—of Him who forestalls death by the sinner’s penitence—

that those who have fallen by crawling under rather than by fighting should more easily return

into the church. The indignity urges us to say: will you rather call back bodies that are contaminated

than those that are blood-stained?

[13] Quae paenitentia miserabilior titillatam prosternens carnem an uero laniatam? Quae iustior uenia in omnibus causis, quam uoluntarius an quam inuitus peccator implorat? Nemo uolens negare compellitur, nemo nolens fornicator.

[13] Which penitence is more pitiable, prostrating the titillated flesh, or rather the lacerated? Which more just pardon in all causes does the voluntary or the involuntary sinner implore? No one who is willing to deny is compelled; no one is a fornicator unwillingly.

[14] Nulla ad libidinem uis est, nisi ipsa; nescit quo libet cogi. Negationem porro quanta compellunt ingenia carnificis et genera poenarum? Quis magis negauit, qui Christum uexatus an qui delectatus amisit?

[14] No upon libido is there force, except itself; it does not know how to be compelled whithersoever one pleases. Moreover, by how many devices of the executioner and kinds of punishments is a denial compelled? Who has denied more: he who, tormented, lost Christ, or he who, delighted, lost him?

Qui cum amitteret doluit, an qui cum amitteret lusit?

Which one, he who, when he was losing,
grieved, or he who, when he was losing, made sport?

[15] Et tamen illae cicatrices Christiano proelio insculptae et utique inuidiosae apud Christum, quia uicisse cupierunt, et sic quoque gloriosae, quia non uincendo cesserunt, in quas adhuc et diabolus ipse suspirat, cum sua infelicitate, sed casta, cum paenitentia maerente, sed non erubescente ad Dominum, de uenia denuo dimittetur eis, qui piaculariter negauerunt. Solis illis caro infirma est. Atquin nullatam fortis caro quam quae spiritum elidit.

[15] And yet those cicatrices
engraved by Christian combat and assuredly enviable with Christ,
because they desired to have conquered, and thus also glorious, because by not conquering they yielded, at
which even the devil himself still sighs, with his own ill-fortune, yet chaste, with
a penitence grieving, yet not blushing before the Lord, pardon anew will be granted
to them who have piacularly denied. For those alone the flesh is weak. But indeed no
flesh is so strong as that which crushes the Spirit.