Augustine, Sermones 158-163 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

Sermon 162. On the words of the Apostle, Every sin whatsoever a man commits is outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body. 1 Cor. chapter 6, verses 9-20.

Fragment.

1. A difficult question from the words of the Apostle. The question from the Epistle of the blessed apostle Paul to the Corinthians, where he says, Every sin whatsoever a man commits is outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body: I do not know whether it can be resolved to full clarity, although, with the Lord's gift, something probable can be said about it; so deep is it. For when, earlier in the same Epistle, the Apostle was saying, Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor those who lie with males, nor thieves, nor the avaricious, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers shall possess the kingdom of God; and a little after, Do you not know, he says, that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Far from it. Or do you not know that he who cleaves to a harlot is one body? For they shall be, he says, two in one flesh. But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication: and there he added, Every sin whatsoever a man commits is outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit in you, Whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a great price: glorify and carry God in your body: since then he had first enumerated in this chapter many and horrible sins of men, to which the kingdom of God will not be given, which nevertheless can be committed by men only through the body; since he says that this body, that of the faithful at any rate, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, Whom we have from God; and asserts that the very members of our body are members of Christ: since, reproving concerning these and in a certain manner questioning, he says, Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? and has answered himself, Far from it; and goes on further to say, Do you not know that he who cleaves to a harlot is one body? For they shall be, he says, two in one flesh: but he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit; and concludes, Flee fornication: yet he himself continues, and says, Every sin whatsoever a man commits is outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body; as though, forsooth, those sins which he enumerated, saying, Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor those who lie with males, nor thieves, nor the avaricious, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers shall possess the kingdom of God; all these crimes and outrages, can it be that they can be done or practised only through the body? This, what man of sound mind

would deny? For the Apostle was urging and defending this whole passage on account of the body itself, already bought at a great price, that is, with the precious blood of Christ, made by the Lord a temple of the Holy Spirit, so that it might not be polluted by such shameful deeds, but rather be kept inviolate as the dwelling-place of God. Why then did he wish to add this, from which a difficult question would arise; that is, to say, Every sin whatsoever that a man does is outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body: since both fornication itself and other sins of this kind, which are committed only through the body and are most like to foulness and fornication, are carried on and practised only through the body itself? For what? Could anyone be (to say nothing of the other things mentioned above) a thief, or a drunkard, or a reviler, or a robber, without the operation of this body? Although not even idolatry itself nor avarice itself could attain its own use and enjoyment without the service of this body. What then is meant by, Every sin whatsoever that a man does is outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body? First, because a man placed in this body, whatever he can wickedly desire with the mind alone, cannot be said to do outside this body, since it is clear that he does this by carnal sense and carnal prudence, being still enclosed in this body. For what is written in the Psalm, The impious man said in his heart, There is no God (Ps. 13:1): this same blessed Paul the apostle certainly could not separate from bodily action, in the place where he says, We shall all stand before the judgement-seat of Christ, that each one may receive according to what he has done through the body, whether good or evil (2 Cor. 5:10). Because clearly only when placed in the body could the impious man say, There is no God. To say nothing of what the Teacher of the Gentiles himself says in another Epistle, Now the works of the flesh are manifest: and he goes on, Which are fornications, uncleannesses, luxuries, poisonings, enmities, contentions, rivalries, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envies, drunkennesses, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, as I have forewarned, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal. 5:19–21). For does it not seem to us that those other things which he inserted there, rivalries, animosities, dissensions, envies, heresies, are done outside the body? And yet the Teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth assigned these to the works of the flesh. What then is meant by, Every sin whatsoever that a man does is outside the body; and, naming only the one sin of fornication, he says: But he who commits fornication sins against his own body?

2. Solution of the difficulty. Why fornication alone is called a sin against one's own body. It is evident, then, to anyone however slow and dull, how difficult this question is: if the Lord deigns to make it somewhat clear and to reveal it to our pious intention, we shall be able to say something reasonable [about it]. For the blessed Apostle, in whom Christ was speaking, seems either to have wished to magnify the evil of fornication above all other sins, which, even if they are committed through the body, nevertheless do not make the human mind so bound and subject to carnal concupiscence as in the sole act

of bodily fornication, the immense force of lust makes the mind mingle with the body itself, and in a certain way be glued to it and bound into one with that very body; so much so that at that very moment and in the experience of so great a disgrace a man is permitted to think of or attend to nothing else, except that which binds over to itself the mind, which the very submersion, and in a certain way the absorption, of lust and carnal concupiscence subdues as a captive; so that this seems to be what was said, But he who commits fornication sins against his own body: because then the heart of the fornicating man becomes properly and intimately the slave of the body, above all at the time of that most wicked act itself: so much so that the Apostle himself, wishing to commend this evil to men more emphatically as something to be guarded against, said, Taking then the members of Christ, shall I make them the members of a harlot? and, cursing and detesting it, answered, Far from it. Or do you not know, he says, that he who cleaves to a harlot is one body? For they shall be, he says, two in one flesh. Could this be said of any other crimes of men whatever? For the human mind is free, in any other crimes whatever, both to perform some one of them and at that very time to be drawn elsewhere in thought: but in the very act and time of fornication the mind is not permitted to be free to think of anything else. For thus the whole man is absorbed by the body itself and in it, so that it can no longer be said that the mind is its own; but rather the whole man together can be said to be flesh, and a spirit that goes and does not return (Ps. 77:39). Thus, therefore, we can understand that every sin whatever that a man commits is outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body: so that the Apostle seems, as I said, to have wished to magnify the evil of fornication to such a degree that in comparison with this fornication he judged all other sins whatever to be reckoned as outside the body, and said that by this evil of fornication alone is sin committed against one's own body, because, through the greater ardour of lust, than which none is stronger, the pleasure of the body itself holds [the man] as a slave and makes him captive.

3. General fornication, by which one does not cleave to God. Let these things be said about the special fornication of this body. But since fornication is not only specifically but also generally rebuked and named in the sacred Scriptures, let us try, with God's help, to say something probable on this point too. General fornication, then, is openly made manifest in the Psalm, where it is said: For behold, those who put themselves far from Thee shall perish; everyone who commits fornication away from Thee Thou destroyed. Where he subsequently added how this general fornication can be evaded and escaped, saying: But for me it is good to cleave to God (Ps. 72:27–28). So that from this we may easily observe that the general fornication of the human soul is that by which anyone, not cleaving to God, cleaves to the world. Hence the blessed apostle John says: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15). And the apostle James says: Adulterers, do you not know that the friendship of this world is hostile to God (Jas. 4:4)? Briefly, then, it has been defined that he who has the love of the world cannot have the love of God; and that he is an enemy of God,

who wishes to be a friend of the world. To this also belongs what the Lord says in the Gospel: No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will bear with the one, and despise the other. And He concludes: You cannot serve God and mammon (Matt. 6:24). This, then, is, as has been said, the general fornication of the soul, containing absolutely everything in itself, by which one does not cleave to God while one cleaves to the world: so that in this way we may also be able to understand, according to this general fornication, what the Apostle says, Every sin whatsoever that a man commits is outside the body; but he who fornicates sins against his own body. For if the human soul does not fornicate, by cleaving to God and not cleaving to the world, whatever other sins, wholly foreign to carnal concupiscence, a man may incur through the very frailty of mortality, whether by not knowing, or by neglecting, or by forgetting, or by not understanding, let this be what has been said, Every sin whatsoever that a man commits is outside the body: because no sin of bodily or temporal concupiscence can be found here; hence any such sin seems rightly to be said to be outside the body. But if the worldly man, cleaving to the world, puts himself far from God, fornicating away from God Himself, he sins against his own body: because by bodily concupiscence the human mind is drawn towards all temporal and carnal things, by carnal sense and prudence, and is pulled apart, serving the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed for ever.

4. The twofold interpretation of the Apostle. Thus, then, as far as it seems to me, with the faith kept safe, the evil of each fornication, the special as well as the universal, can be understood in this one short passage of so great and so eminent a teacher, where he says, Every sin whatsoever that a man commits is outside the body; but he who fornicates sins against his own body: so that either an emphatic heightening has been made by the Apostle of this special fornication, by which one is rightly understood to sin against one's own body; because nowhere is the whole man so given over to the pleasure of the body itself, and so unspeakably or inescapably afflicted, that in comparison with this so great evil, the other sins seem to be outside the body, even if they are carried out through the body. Just as the force, so to speak, of an imperious lust belonging to fornication alone subjects [the man] to its own condition, and makes him the vilest slave of his own body, above all at the time of that most unclean act itself; so that it is not free for the human mind to think of or attend to anything else besides what it is doing in the body itself. But if the Apostle also wished to signify the general fornication, on account of which he may seem to have said, Every sin whatsoever that a man commits is outside the body: but he who fornicates sins against his own body: it is to be taken and understood thus, that each one who, while he does not cleave to God, cleaves to the world, loving and coveting all temporal things, is rightly said to sin against his own body, that is, having become given up and subjected to all carnal concupiscence, as wholly a slave of the creature, estranged from the Creator Himself, through that pride which is the beginning of every sin, of which pride the beginning is, as it is written,