Sermo de contubernalibus

Of our father among the saints Basil the Great, a discourse concerning the syneisaktoi. Let us also begin to speak, empowered by the prayers of the holy servants of Christ through the Holy Spirit by the only-begotten Son of God, Christ our Lord, uttering words of piety and temperance. Let us pronounce words of grace and truth, empowered by the great grace. Having opened our mouth in Christ, let us bring forth a small treasure stored in our heart, small in its perceptible substance but great in its intelligible nature; and let us put forward a stater of pure gold, and having purified it, as if in a crucible, with sincere intention, let us display it most clearly to you all. For the mind is willing, and the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. For I would wish to be able, standing upon the highest peaks, to sound forth through my mouth like a trumpet, and like thunder to send forth words of temperance against the whole world, so that they might serve as a testimony to all who corrupt the truth. But this is impossible; for I am a short-lived man, insignificant in stature, small in voice, and otherwise humble in soul, entangled in many sins. But even if I were to raise my voice to a height like thunder and cry out loudly, I would not be heard. For Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who fixed the heavens like a vault, and founded the earth upon the waters, and solidified the sea—

The one who prepared fire, and brimstone, and Gehenna, and fear, and trembling of eternal judgments for those who sin, this one cries out through the Gospels and gives commands, yet is disobeyed. The holy Apostles again in turn, perfect disciples of Christ and named sons of thunder, write through epistles and exhort, yet are despised. But neither the holy prophets of God, nor the law, nor men who admonish cause any shame. And who else, then, will be able to correct such a harsh and savage matter? Since, therefore, a wound has spread over the whole world, it seems to me that many words, like cauteries, must be applied to the affliction. For the disease has poured forth and has taken hold of the majority, not to say all, and like a most dark mist it has covered the sight of the mind for many. I, however, will speak with boldness, kindling a lamp of piety through my mouth with holy words, and recounting venerable examples of virtue in conduct, fearing not any man, but having before my eyes the one who judges without partiality the living and the dead, and not wishing to become a partner of those caught in the evil net, so that, like the sun, the word may spread its rays, dissolve the darkness of the mind of those who listen with a pure heart, and stop the affliction with its own flashes. For the root of all evils is love of money, says the divine Apostle; truly a root that brings forth many branches of wickedness, on account of which all things in this wicked life are accomplished.

The root of all evils is love of women, and the leader of destruction—I mean the madness for female companions—a root that sprouts ruin and blossoms into madness. For it is Jewish in origin, brought over from Sodom, in that it possesses a certain insidious and fabricated semblance of counterfeit love from without. And now take and bring forward that saying of the Apostle, which declares: "Do we not have authority to take a sister-woman about, as also the rest of the apostles and Cephas?" On this those enslaved by the passion of wretchedness rely, taking what was written well for edification and misinterpreting it by their own vain folly to the destruction of souls. And let us examine in parallel the practices of the apostles and of those who now believe. Let us first learn who was writing, and whether the blessed Apostle permitted it by letter, and did not rather forbid them, offering himself as a pattern to us all; for we know that he spent all his time associating with the most reverent men, and not living with the most unseemly women; nor do they even blush to say this. Let shame be poured upon those who compare themselves to Peter, the foremost of the apostles and key-bearer of the kingdom of heaven, and declare: "If he had a female companion, then we too follow in his footsteps.

And perhaps you are right. So then, raise Tabitha from the dead for me yourself through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, so that I may believe you, that you too are a spirit-bearer, filled with divine power. Drive out for me the demons which he drove out, the diseases, and perform the other healings which he accomplished in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; for I pass over the rest. When you show me, then I will believe you, that you are not inflamed toward the beast. Or do you not hear what our Lord Jesus Christ says, that "He who looked at a woman with desire has already committed adultery with her in his heart"? Or do the words of the Gospel seem a myth to you? You see how he not only forbade the act, but also turned away from seeing the character of the face, knowing that the ambush is a stumbling block to the man's soul? But to you, the sufferer, the matter seems a game; for you have blinded your mind with shamelessness, putting it on your face like a mask; for you do not know what a shipwreck you have fallen into. Let us return to the characters of the holy prophets, how they spent their whole life in mountains and caves, not only refraining from seeing a woman, but even from thinking of one. Or will this too seem utter nonsense to you? For I see you consoling yourself with the antitheses of many empty words.

Remember the expulsion from paradise, and the destruction of the flood, and the overthrow of the Sodomites, because through woman all evils from beginning to end come to pass, the betrayal of Samson the righteous, and the plot against that virtuous Joseph. Recall the ruin of the chosen race of the Jews. But if these things do not persuade you, let Solomon the wise persuade you, saying somewhere: Wine and woman will lead astray the hearts of the wise. He said "of the wise," so that you might not interject something here and think meanly of the saying. For wine, creeping into a man and producing the stupor of drunkenness in him, like a flooding river, sweeps away the whole understanding with its own rush, and drives the man into madness. And woman does the same things against man as wine does. Therefore indeed the proverbialist likened wine to woman; and all the prophets likened the race of women, which destroys the souls of men, to various evils and venomous beasts. But not even these things persuade you; for everything seems to you, it appears, a game. For you have stopped your ears like a deaf asp, not heeding the divine Scriptures. And moreover you yourself have changed your nature into a bestial mode, having become like-minded with her through cohabitation with the beast; whose words are pleasant, and her voice sweet, but her soul is wild, and her mind that of serpents, and her purpose that of creeping things, and her glance fire-breathing, and

The kiss is venomous; and her struggle is, by the flattery of words, the deception of appearance, and the assault of the kiss, to spit the venom of the beast into the throat of the wretched man. So then she drags down the mind, and benumbs the understanding, and mutilates the very governing part, and distracts the intellect; and just as poisons given to men for destruction darken the perception and sweep the whole man into insensibility by the severity of the poison, by the same reasoning the woman through the kiss harms the rational man who has been led by irrational impulse, and the self-determined, godlike part of the soul, that moving instrument composed of many strings and virtues, she carries about here and there like a lifeless instrument wherever she wishes, by a single deceitful word, or a hiss of the lips, or a nod of the eyes, and like a surging sea, she sweeps away the whole body with her impulses. And then one can see the wretched man, the pitiable man, the man worthy of all compassion, the man prudent in understanding, the man experienced to the utmost in the science of grammar, and a craftsman of sophistic teaching, the man partaking of the science of medicine, the man experienced in all kinds of letters, or even one who has devoted himself to the reading of divine words, and who has often taken up the solitary life, and who holds a prominent place in the Church, bound like a cheap animal with a rope and tossed here and there; for she has bound him through feigned love, or rather, if one must speak the truth, through shameful love. And then such a man becomes worthy of a funeral dirge, lamented while living, and mourned when dead.

For even while living he died, dwelling as in a tomb in his own body; and having died, he died a double death, punished by the judgment of the fire of eternal Gehenna. What do you say now, O most wretched of the wretched, O neighbor of evil? Where are your solemn walks? Where is your consummate education? Where the labor of wisdom? Where the dignity of your ways? Where your discipline? Where the many nights you spent on the ground for the sake of philosophy? Where your understanding? Where your love of God? Where your love of Christ? But you have become far removed from these, having cohabited with an evil beast, or rather having cast yourself into the Tartarus of perdition. For who compelled you to enter the workshop of lawlessness? Who compelled you to slip into her bosom, as into the depth of a raging sea? Were you not free? You have made yourself self-condemned. Since you did not wish, before the height of the passion, to release yourself from the grievous thing, you surely feared that she, once cast out, would expose your secrets. But why did you entrust to her the mysteries that were well stored within you? Did they not provide you with a refuge, guarded in the treasures of your wisdom? Then, as for the one who is offended by his own right eye, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, commands him to cut off the offending member by himself.

But you—do you not cast out from yourself that which is hostile and opposed, a thing that not only scandalizes but also kills the soul? For let her be beloved for Christ’s sake, even to the point of greeting; but if she harms the soul, do not even greet her. Only visit the sick, and do not scandalize the healthy, whether in a time of affliction, of persecution, or in church—since we are all one in Christ, but now we are not. Why? Because we do not wish it, having preferred misanthropy to brotherly love. Do not scandalize the world, you who have housekeepers. Did Scripture not permit you to marry? You have become a stumbling block to Jews, to Greeks, and to the Church of God. Or do you attempt to oppose the holy Scriptures and provoke the Lord? Are you stronger than He? Look upon your own weakness, be ashamed of your own passion, heal yourselves in a suitable time, before His presence comes suddenly like a flash of lightning, before the fire-bearer, before the outer darkness, before the end and the sleepless worm. Trembling we speak; with fear you listen; let the matter not appear in jest. Sons of God are delivered to the chains of Tartarus because of a woman.

But you will say to me, "Living with her, I am not harmed." If the serpent living with the asp is not harmed, then surely you will not be harmed either; for the serpent, consorting with the female serpent, receives death as the reward of cohabitation, such being the nature of the female beast. Consider, then, whether the case of the woman is not similar. Let us also adduce proofs, refuting rational men: if fire does not ignite the straw, but you join the male stone to the female, a conflagration occurs. But since you say that a woman can be chaste—this I clearly know. And a man remaining by himself can be decorous—this I precisely know. But a man with a woman is evil; and a woman with a man is a more terrible evil. If again a woman, having abandoned her own relatives, attempts to live with a foreign man for the sake of feigned love, this is then a union of an unlawful bond, producing a conflagration. For with time, growing warm in the cohabitation of the same tent, they kindle the material and set the house ablaze, or rather burn their own bodies into Gehenna and eternal punishment. Tell me, O crafty beast, you who wear the sheep's clothing and harbor the asp's disposition within your breast: why do you smear yourself, why do you anoint yourself? Why do you assume an idol-like form with lifeless, foreign colors? Why do you torture your hair?

Why do you raise up extra braids and headdresses on your head, with alien additions and dead and irrational animals, through your head and face and through the variety of foreign garments, deceiving and softening and bewitching the souls of men? For the faithless woman, gathering together lifeless materials of many kinds and a variety of colors, with all sorts of dyes and soot and lime and herbs, which are external to her own body, and affixing them, has made herself into a many-shaped beast, as it were. But the faithful woman ought to be a stranger to these things, and especially she who professes to be a Christian. Or do you condemn God, O woman, because he made you thus? Leave yourself as you were made; add nothing to yourself by artifice; for you are not more skilled than the one who created you. And for whom do you wish to please by doing these things? For your husband? You have no husband, as you said, O virgin; but if you do have one, he knows your artful composition. Why, having equipped your body with manifold enticements, do you hunt the souls of men to their ruin? And how do you dare to invoke Christ, or to tread the threshold of a church, bearing on your whole body the forms of lifeless idols through gold that perishes—or rather, being paraded about by them, and drawing a great throng of licentious men to the lawless spectacle of yourself? But to whom do we speak these things? To a rational creature that has the disposition of creeping serpents. Neither do the Scriptures persuade you, nor does Gehenna frighten you, nor does the admonition of men pierce you?

At least have shame for your own nature; change your appearance; do not make it an idolatrous character; do not imitate those who practice the harlot’s and adulteress’s shame. For those, being daughters of lawlessness, have a custom of doing such a thing. But for you, who gave such a command? What prophetic Scriptures, or what Gospels, what apostolic commands? I know that the divine Scriptures also forbid those who have a custom of doing this from ever again performing idolatrous imitations. This has been spoken with frankness, but nothing worthy of the deeds. But someone will say: “This speech is harsh; who can hear it?” And this hypocritical and most hateful class once said this to the Savior; but you all know what answer he gave them. So also here: let whoever wishes be stung. For the words of the wise are like goads and like red-hot nails, says Scripture. I consider these trustworthy, even if moderate in speech, against the madness of those who have their concubines. Therefore let the speech, like a bridle, check the neighing and bring into order the irrational impulse of the female stream being swept away. Fear and trembling lie ahead, and fire resounds. Let no one despise it. For even if someone is bestial, he will be tamed by fire; even if someone is serpentine in purpose, Tartarus is prepared; even if someone carries a Sodomite heart, fire rains from heaven; for all the heavens are stored with fire.

Let no one listen to the speaker’s voice, but let him consider the terror of the power of the words, and keep the judgment of God before his eyes: how merciless is the judgment for him who has not shown mercy. Now it is time for me to say a few words also to you, O men, who are enemies of your brothers and friends of women, who burn with turbid friendship for women and are coldest toward the pure love of brothers. But you will say that you do this for Christ’s sake, providing for the weak vessel. Yes, I know. Why then do you not do the same for your brother who is poor for Christ’s sake, but look upon your brothers as plotters, and upon plotters as sisters? But you will say to me: How can I take my brother with me? That woman warmed me; that woman flattered me; that woman made me variegated garments, delicate and twisted and newly woven; her voice was sweet, and her glance tender. You do not know what you think. These are the words of those who are possessed. That woman’s sweet words will later be found more bitter than gall; that woman’s tender glance leads you down to the bars of Tartarus; but the love of a brother procures for you the kingdom of heaven. Why do you prefer the treacherous love of the asp-chelonian to the genuine love of a brother? Why do you pursue what destroys, thrusting away what saves?

If the men of Nineveh, who believed in the proclamation of the prophet, will rise up in the judgment and condemn those who disobeyed the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, then certainly also the wise men of the Greeks, who practiced philosophy and chose misogyny, will condemn those who are in true wisdom and are entangled with dissolute little women. For those men, through grammatical experience and rhetorical skill—which is folly before God—practiced continence, even though they worshipped lifeless idols. But also those who run in the stadium of madness despise the matter, not even looking at a woman at all, for the sake of a perishable prize. Yet you, having learned the mysteries of heavenly things and having heard beforehand the fearful judgments of the coming age, did not preserve chastity, nor did you keep continence, being led astray by vain reasoning into the companionship of tent-mates. And how will any of you be able to take thought for the Church, and to speak the word of catechesis in the church, without first purifying your own conscience? To whom one might reasonably say: Hypocrite, first cast the beam out of your own eye, and then you will be able to cast out the splinter that is in your brother’s eye. How will you dare to speak about chastity, when you yourself are enslaved to woman-madness? Or how will you teach about justice, when you yourself are enslaved by injustice?

held fast. Let such a one first heal his own wound, and then he will be able to cure his brother's bruise, strengthening his soul with divine words; for the wound of the soul, when consoled by holy words, is lightened. Therefore, exhort all people: those who are burning, if they wish, to marry in Christ (knowing, however, that one woman was created for one man, and that Lamech, being from Cain, was the first to take two wives for himself; but to take for oneself is not according to the will of God. For polygamy, though it bears the name of marriage, is a love-of-beauty prostitution); and those who practice continence, to train perfectly in Christ, and not to philosophize in name only while secretly doing the deed. And again, do not heed the eyes of men, because you are not seen, with walls enclosing you on all sides; but fear the threat of God, because all things are naked and laid bare before him, both those done by men by night and by day. And I am greatly amazed, struck by the insensibility of those who are short-sighted, how women have voluntarily given themselves into slavery, purchased for a price by the one who has honored them. For often a maiden who has not served her own parents, and has not repaid the due recompense for their just labors to her own begetters, this same one is found eager to please her beloved, and strives in every way to gratify him, and not to serve God piously, toiling night and day, changing and preparing garments for him.

and there are many other matters which we are not ignorant of, but which we do not wish to mention now; for it is not lawful to bring into the open things done by them in secret, which are shameful even to speak of. The remaining one, like a fish caught in a wicked net, is enslaved to the woman through his garments and the death-dealing service performed for the sake of pleasing people and not for piety; his mind is intoxicated, and he is utterly shaken and loosened by the woman's words, and he no longer recognizes the time for prayer, nor, if he bends to pray, does he know what he is doing, gazing at the image of a harlot's disposition. The woman likewise suffers along with the sufferer. And when Scripture is read, they are blind to its meaning; and when homilies are spoken in church, they do not know what they hear, enslaved as they are to each other's shameful passion. So much does the erotic and manic passion blind the soul that, if possible, they would even forget their own names. So much does the woman living with the man turn aside the man's mind; so much does the man dwelling with the woman drive the woman to a frenzy of desire; so much power has a woman living with a man to cause forgetfulness even of God. Let us drive ourselves away from Gehenna and eternal fire. Why do you, while living, bury yourselves in Hades and fearful Tartarus? You who have syneisaktoi and live with them, unlearn the evil lesson, which brings destruction and betrays salvation. Let us imitate the apostles. Let us imitate the prophets, and walk in their footsteps, and let not the bait of woman deceive us.

Nor again should we ourselves entice a woman through vainglory and feigned humility; but let all things be done by us prudently in Christ, according to true and steadfast humility, so that we may be able to be delivered from the present evil time, according to the will of our Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, through whom and with whom glory, power, and honor belong to the invisible Father together with the holy and comforting Spirit, now and for all the ages of ages. Amen.