Contra fornicarios

Gregory of Nyssa, Bishop, On the Saying “He Who Fornicates Sins Against His Own Body” The trumpet of the apostolic command is fearsome, mustering many other things for the army of piety, but especially driving away from the pits of shamefulness, and indeed adding a military order at the end. “Flee,” it says, “fornication. Every sin that a man commits is outside the body.” For the soldiers of perceptible wars now employ frontal engagement, now flight, to outwit the battle lines. There is also a war for souls, conducted by resistance and flight. And Paul, knowing this, the tactician of piety, leading the army through each skill, now commands perseverance in battle: “Stand, girding your loins in truth,” and now advises outwitting the enemy by flight: “Flee fornication.” If a war of unbelief attacks, resistance is useful against that; if a battle line of wiles threatens, close engagement with these antagonists is good; if a bow of slander is drawn, frontal engagement against falsehood is beneficial; but when a fornicating form shoots, it is good to turn one’s back and flee the frontal encounter; for fornication aims straight at the eyes, and one must remember the general’s command.

flee from fornication. For it has something more to be fled than other evils: the other forms of sin seem to spare the flesh of those who commit them, and the act affects only the one who receives the action. For example, in thefts, the loss is only of the stolen goods; in the power of the envious, the passion bursts forth against the envied; in slanders, when they gain credence, the danger is again only of the slandered; in murders, likewise, the evil deed is of the one who receives the slaughter. If one goes through every unjust act, one will find that the part of the wrongdoers gains, while the part of the wronged is harmed. But fornication knows no such division, nor does it separate the act of the sufferer from that of the doer, but it brings both together to a common dishonor, and binds them with a bond of defilement. For the greedy, it is possible to have harmed another without being harmed themselves; for fornicators, it is not possible to have shamed a body without being shamed along with the shamed. For murderers, it is possible to have wrought murder without being slain along with the slain; for fornicators, it is not possible to have defiled flesh and to be clean of the defilement. And consider, I pray, Paul’s subtlety in this: “Flee,” he says, “from fornication.” Why? Because “Every sin that a man commits is outside the body” (that is, it does not harm the nature of the body, is not contracted by the outrage of the limbs, is not filled with the defilement of the flesh, but is wrought as harm outside the body of the doer), “But he who fornicates sins against his own body.

not as the murderer, who preserves his own body unharmed while harming another's; not as the greedy man, who guards his own flesh from injury while inflicting it on another; but the fornicator is his own destroyer, pierced by his own hand with the arrow of dishonor. The thief dares the offense in order to feed his body, but the fornicator devotes himself to the plundering of his own flesh; the covetous man is goaded to rapacity by a profit-loving calculation, but fornication is a loss of the body's dignity; the envious man contrives his passion by glorifying another, but the fornicator is the self-wrought author of his own disgrace. For what is more dishonorable than the servitude of fornication? Every sin is a slavish dishonor (for it degrades the nobility of the soul), but the fornicator is a slave more dishonorable than sin itself: assigned to draw filth in her service, he gathers a heap of defilement and performs an unclean task. Or is it not terrible to wallow in mud, to be rubbed with shame, to have a body no different from a rag? For what difference is there between a rag and a fornicator? He is torn from the body of piety, corrupted by daily putrefaction, cast aside like a useless rag on the roads of sin, lying as a trampling ground for all demons, into whom the devil wipes his own rot. And the manifest and clear evil of the fornicator is no less than his intelligible misconduct.

For he is shunned from homes, avoided in encounters, an insult to those who approach him, a reproach to his enemies, a shame to his relatives, accursed to his housemates, a grief to his parents, a spectacle for his servants, a laughingstock story for his neighbors, rejected when eager to marry, a suspect bridegroom after marriage, a father hated by his children, a counselor held in contempt, unpleasant when granting favors, more unpleasant when asking, a vexation when seen from afar, more wretched when ill, more dishonored when dead. Paul, seeing such a multitude of evils as the mother of fornication, has just now proclaimed to us the victorious flight, crying out: Flee fornication. This cry has now reminded me of a young man, chaste, who excelled against Egyptian fornication through flight. And yet many things urged persuasion upon the young man: a pleasure-loving age, the yoke of slavery, the amorous flattery of his mistress, constant talk of licentiousness, secret enticement to intercourse. For such a day came, and Joseph entered the house to do his work, and no one of those in the house was inside, and the mistress pulled at his garments, saying: Lie with me. Great is the dignity of chastity: it made the mistress a slave of the slave; for he was being entreated, and she was entreating: Lie with me, lie with me. The arrow of fornication was inflamed, but it found no burning material in the soul, but was dissolved into the garment, which the shamelessness of fornication, tightening around, cried out: Lie with me. It bellows the hunger of lustful desire, but rather closed the ears of the chaste one. For she said: Lie with me, but chastity proclaimed to the young man:

Wake with me, and that man showed by his deeds his sleeplessness; for his resolve did not doze off under flatteries, his judgment did not sleep under incantations, the sobriety of his chastity did not slumber, he was not loosened by the grips that seized him, he was not caught by the adornments of her form, he was not broken by the coaxing of amorous words, but to him the voice of his mistress flattering him was more bitter than abuse: "Sleep with me." The devil stood ready as the bridesmaid of adultery and tightened her garment around the whore and shared in her grips, but he did not know that he was wrestling with a craftsman, an athlete of chastity, who skillfully shed her grips. For, it says, leaving his clothes in her hands, he fled and went outside. O nakedness more holy than clothing! What then of the frenzy of Egyptian licentiousness? She attributes her own evils to Joseph and, running to her husband, says: "You brought us a Hebrew boy to mock us; for he said to your wife, who until now has kept your bed chastely, 'I will sleep with you.' But when I raised my voice and cried out, he left his clothes with me and fled and went outside." Again Joseph is slandered through his garment; earlier his brothers took his tunic and, as if he had been devoured by a beast, maliciously slandered him through it; now she takes the tunic and accuses him of being a fornicator. The voice of the master is fitting for Joseph: "They divided my garments among themselves and cast a lie upon my clothing." The rhetoric of chastity is sweet to the army of the chaste, but burdensome to the weakness of the flesh.

Oh the just protection of Joseph by God! Before the trials, God did not honor Joseph, but showed through dreams the future, teaching that from afar he was preparing glory for the righteous, and he permitted the trials to test the young man, closing the mouths of fault-finders. For if Joseph had not given proof, the fault-finders would have said that what happened was due to blind chance: "A child rules over Egyptians, a boy rules over barbarians. What virtue has he shown? For what virtue has he obtained this?" So that these things might not be said about the righteous man, God, anticipating the trials that would come upon him, permits them, so that from them testimony for the righteous man might arise and the mouths of fault-finders be sewn shut. Let us therefore turn away from the assaults coming from a whorish form, let us close our eyes to licentious acts, let the disorders of pleasures be laughed at by us, let sobriety guard the flesh, let purity dwell in our limbs, let us be polished by love-of-beauty thoughts, let us shine with the rays of deeds, let us gleam with a cleansed life, let us keep the body pure as a temple for the dwelling of the spirit, let us inscribe upon it an inscription shouting the fearful command to the licentious: "If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him." I would wish not to be separated from you even for a short time; for what is sweeter to a father than the company of beloved sons? But since the word calls to contests of piety, I must run to the arena of the church, having taken you as fellow workers in prayers. But I ask this of your love:

Guard the ecclesiastical order; even if some introduce disturbances, overcome the disturbances with patience. For the correction of the uproars will not be long in coming. Do not be troubled by rumors, do not be stirred up by idle talk, but send us prayers as fellow travelers, so that, strengthened by your prayers, we may say at every moment, aided by divine power: I am strong in everything through Christ who strengthens me, to whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen.