Sexual morality

Chastity, adultery, fornication (porneia), and other sexual sins. Part of Ethics.

Passages that substantially address this topic, in date order.

Didache 2.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Commandments against murder, adultery, abuse of boys, sexual immorality, theft, magic, abortion, and infanticide.
Didache 3.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Lust, foul talk, and roving eyes lead to sexual sin.
Epistle of Barnabas 10.6Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The hare stands for corrupters of boys.
Epistle of Barnabas 10.7Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The hyena stands for adulterers and corrupters.
Epistle of Barnabas 10.8Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The weasel stands for those who commit impure acts with the mouth.
Epistle of Barnabas 19.4Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · No sexual immorality, adultery, or abuse of boys; be gentle and forgiving.
Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.1 (29.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Keep purity; let no thought of another's wife enter your heart.
Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.2 (29.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Even the thought is sin; the deed brings death.
Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.9 (29.9)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Idolatry is also adultery; do not live with one who persists in it.
Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim fragment) 24Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Adulterous women hang by their hair, and their partners by their feet, over the mire.
Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim fragment) 32Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Those who practised same-sex intercourse are cast down from a cliff again and again.
To the Philippians 5.3Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Young men must live pure lives, because the sexually immoral will not inherit God's kingdom, and they must be subject to the presbyters and deacons; the virgins must keep a pure conscience.
Apology 9Aristides of Athens · ca. 125–145 · Aristides lists the scandalous myths of Kronos, Zeus, and Hephaestus to show they cannot be gods.
Acts of Andrew (Vatican fragments), chapter 5Anonymous · ca. 150-200 (the Acts); the Martyrdom text is later · Andrew urges Maximilla to refuse Aegeates and to endure his threats, seeing in her Eve repenting and in himself Adam turning back.
Acts of John 35Anonymous · ca. 150–200 · John's sermon warns the vain, adulterers, the miserly, the wrathful and the drunken of their end.
Acts of John 49Anonymous · ca. 150–200 · John stops the fleeing parricide, who confesses that he meant to kill the woman, her husband and himself.
Discourse to the Greeks 2Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century (disputed) · Hesiod's gods commit parricide, rape, adultery, and pederasty, and their roles are absurdly confused.
Sentences of Sextus 13Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Every member of the body that urges you to act against chastity is to be cast away; for it is better to live without one member than to be punished with it.
Sentences of Sextus 70Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Conquer lust.
Sentences of Sextus 231Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Every unchaste man is an adulterer even with his own wife.
Sentences of Sextus 232Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Do nothing for the sake of lust alone.
Sentences of Sextus 233Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Know that you are an adulterer even if you have thought of adultery; and let the same reckoning hold for you about every sin.
Sentences of Sextus 240Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · As you restrain the belly, so also the sexual impulses.
Sentences of Sextus 272Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · The pleasures of the most shameful lust pass quickly, but the disgraces remain for ever.
Sentences of Sextus 429Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · An incontinent man defiles God.
Sentences of Sextus 437Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A faithful man takes the lusts of the body hard.
Sentence 68 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Flee licentiousness.
Sentence 231 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Every licentious man is an adulterer with his own wife.
Sentence 233 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Know that you are an adulterer even if you only think of committing adultery; and let the same principle hold for you concerning every sin.
Dialogue with Trypho 134.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin criticizes rabbis who permit polygamy by appealing to the patriarchs.
Dialogue with Trypho 141.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · David's fall shows that the patriarchs' marriages were not license; Justin criticizes polygamy.
Oration to the Greeks 34Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The Greeks honor with statues tyrants, fratricides, adulterers, and prostitutes, while despising the Christian way of life.
Diatessaron, section 8Tatian · ca. 160-180
To Autolycus 3.13Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Scripture forbids unchastity even in thought; the Gospel forbids lustful looks, marrying a divorced woman, and divorce except for sexual immorality.
A Plea for the Christians 32Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christians are forbidden even lustful looks and keep their “brothers and sisters” chaste, even in the kiss of greeting.
A Plea for the Christians 34Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Those who accuse Christians of vice practice prostitution and pederasty themselves; the real cannibalism is their violence against defenseless Christians.
Martyrdom of Peter (Greek Acts of Peter) 4Anonymous · ca. 180–200 · Agrippa's four concubines, taught by Peter, refuse him, and he threatens them and Peter.
Acts of Peter (Vercelli) 3Anonymous · ca. 180–200 · Paul celebrates a eucharist of bread and water, an adulteress is struck down, he exhorts the new believers, prays, and is escorted to the harbour to sail for Spain.
Acts of Peter (Vercelli) 32Anonymous · ca. 180–200 · Simon flies over Rome but falls at Peter's prayer and dies after surgery at Terracina; the prefect Agrippa's concubines, hearing Peter preach chastity, refuse him.
Acts of Peter (Vercelli) 34Anonymous · ca. 180–200 · Xanthippe, wife of Albinus, and many others withdraw from their spouses after Peter's preaching on chastity, and Albinus and Agrippa plot to kill Peter.
The Instructor 2.10.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The aim of marital intercourse is children, and in begetting a human being cooperates with God; seed must not be wasted in unnatural acts. Moses's prohibition of the hare and the hyena was read as a symbolic ban on pederasty and adultery.
The Instructor 2.10.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The hyena's perversion is a picture of unnatural lust; Plato called pederasty beastly, and Paul condemns unnatural relations as dishonorable passions.
The Instructor 2.10.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Nature itself, by the structure of the body, forbids homosexual acts and other unfruitful intercourse; Jeremiah's “hyena's den” condemns idolatry.
The Instructor 2.10.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The hare's constant mating was read as a symbol; the prohibition of eating it teaches abstinence from excessive intercourse, intercourse with pregnant women, homosexual acts, pederasty, and adultery.
The Instructor 2.10.89Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Moses forbade sexual immorality, adultery, and the corruption of boys openly; the punishment of Sodom was written as a warning to us.
The Instructor 2.10.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Plato, learning from Moses, forbade sowing where seed cannot grow; the law forbids homosexual intercourse and adultery; sexual union is lawful only with one's own wife.
The Instructor 2.10.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Licentious speech must not even be named among Christians; intercourse is risky except for procreation, and adultery leads to death.
The Instructor 2.10.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Even pagan poetry condemns adultery and homosexual acts; those who sin in darkness forget that God's eyes see all, as Sirach, Isaiah, and Heraclitus say.
The Instructor 2.10.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Word dwells in us as in a temple, which sexual sin defiles; the fate of those who sinned at Peor is a warning, and Sirach warns against following desires.
The Instructor 3.3.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Every hair is numbered by God and Christ dwells in us; public depilation is indecent and unnatural; those predestined to be conformed to Christ's image should not disfigure the body.
The Instructor 3.3.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Licentiousness is everywhere: prostitution of women and boys, homosexual acts, and, because of the exposure of infants, fathers unknowingly committing incest with their own children in the brothels.
The Instructor 3.3.22Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The laws permit prostitution and trade in human beings for pleasure; Moses forbade it, and his prophecy of a land filled with sexual immorality has come true.
The Instructor 3.8.44Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The destruction of Sodom for its luxury, adultery, and pederasty is an instruction to us, as Jude teaches with the examples of Israel in the desert and the fallen angels.
The Instructor 3.11.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The eyes must be guarded, for ogling is adultery with the eyes; the Lord says to cut out the offending eye; the eye is the lamp of the body, revealing what is within.
Exhortation to the Greeks 2.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Homer's majestic Zeus was an adulterer, Heracles a seducer, and the goddesses too were adulteresses; such gods make immorality a model.
Against Heresies 1.26.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Nicolaitans, followers of the deacon Nicolas, live licentiously, as the Apocalypse shows.
Against Heresies 2.32.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Lord's commands, which forbid even evil thoughts, refute the heretics' claim that they must experience every kind of deed.
Against Heresies 5.11.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Paul names the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, showing that “flesh and blood” means those who live by the flesh, while the name of Christ and the Spirit save.
Miscellanies 2.23.147Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law's death penalty for adultery agrees with the gospel, since one Lord gave both: the adulteress dies to the commandments, but the one who repents is reborn; more is required of those given more. Book 2 ends here.
Miscellanies 3.2.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Epiphanes says God made male and female for common union and gave men strong desire, which no law can abolish; Clement answers that this destroys both law and gospel, which forbid adultery and coveting a neighbor's wife.
Miscellanies 3.4.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some heretics call promiscuity “mystical fellowship”; one quoted “give to everyone who asks” to a Christian virgin, who answered innocently that he should speak to her mother about marriage; they falsify Christ's words.
Miscellanies 3.4.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Such “fellowship” belongs in the brothel; Paul teaches Christians to put off the old man and put on the new, to imitate God in love, and not even to name sexual immorality among them.
Miscellanies 3.4.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some claim the lower body was made by an inferior power, contrary to Christ, who said the same God made inner and outer man; the “Opposers” commit adultery to defy the lesser god who gave the law.
Miscellanies 4.18.114Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Rewards differ: the knower receives what eye has not seen, the simple believer a hundredfold; Clement recalls a self-styled Gnostic who taught that desire alone is not sin unless it is acted out, even in imagination.
Miscellanies 4.18.116Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Looking with desire is sin even without imagined intercourse, if one admires flesh lustfully; but one who looks with pure love sees the soul's beauty and rises through it to the Creator, bearing the Spirit's anointing to the angels at the ascent.
Book of the Laws of Countries 34Anonymous · ca. 196–235
Octavius 28.10Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The obscene charges reflect the pagans' own sexual vices.
Octavius 31.4Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Pagan promiscuity and child exposure make unknowing incest likely.
Apology 9Tertullian · ca. 197 · Tertullian turns the charges back on the pagans: child sacrifice, exposure of infants, drinking of blood, and the risk of incest are found among them, while Christians forbid even abortion and abstain from blood.
Apology 46Tertullian · ca. 197 · Christianity is not merely a philosophy: philosophers attack the gods unpunished, but their lives contradict their teaching, while Christians know God and live chastely and faithfully.
On the Dress of Women 2.1Tertullian · ca. 197–206 · Addressing Christian women, Tertullian argues that chastity, the guardian of the Spirit's temple, requires modest outward dress, not merely bodily integrity.
On the Dress of Women 2.2Tertullian · ca. 197–206 · Women should not seek to be desired, both for their own safety and because a man who lusts after them sins in his heart; even natural beauty should be downplayed.
On the Dress of Women 2.12Tertullian · ca. 197–206 · Christian women dressed like courtesans invite just blame; Scripture describes the harlot city in purple and gold, and Tamar was taken for a harlot by her dress.
To the Nations 1.16Tertullian · 197 · The charge of incest at Christian meetings is turned back on the pagans, whose exposed children and casual unions make incest common, as a recent case at Rome showed.
To the Nations 1.20Tertullian · 197 · Since the pagans are guilty of everything they charge against Christians, they should correct themselves first, and if they did, they would become Christians.
On the Shows 17Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The theatre is a school of unchastity; what is shameful to say or do is also shameful to hear and watch, for what enters through the eyes and ears defiles the spirit.
To His Wife 2.3Tertullian · ca. 200–206 · Marrying a pagan is sexual sin, a violation of the body bought by Christ's blood, and daily exposure to pagan ways wears faith away.
Acts of Thomas 28Anonymous · ca. 200–250 · Thomas preaches against sexual immorality, greed, and gluttony, quotes the Lord's sayings on anxiety, and calls all to repent before the coming judgment.
Acts of Thomas 84Anonymous · ca. 200–250 · Thomas urges abstinence from adultery and all vice and praises holiness, which here means chastity, as the champion that leads to eternal life.
Didascalia 1.1 (Latin)Anonymous · first half of the third century · Covetousness of a neighbor's wife or goods is already adultery and theft; Christians keep the one simple law of not doing to others what they would not have done to themselves.
Didascalia 1.3Anonymous · first half of the third century
Didascalia 1.7 (Latin)Anonymous · first half of the third century · A long quotation from Proverbs 7 and 5 warns against the adulterous woman.
On Proverbs, fragment 14Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · On Prov 7:22: the man who follows the harlot is like the lustful, foolish kepphos bird that is easily caught.
On Proverbs, fragment 15Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · On Prov 7:26–27: the harlot's desire ends in death, and many forms of wickedness lead the foolish to Hades.
Arabic Pentateuch fragment XVI (on Num 5:5–7; 11–28. 6)Hippolytus of Rome · unknown (transmitted in a medieval Arabic catena) · Hippolytus is cited on Num 5–6: the law of restitution teaches confession and repentance, the ordeal of the suspected wife figures the testing of the pure and impure soul, and the Nazirite vow teaches the guarding of soul and faith.
Arabic Pentateuch fragment XIX (on Num 25. 26)Hippolytus of Rome · unknown (transmitted in a medieval Arabic catena) · The catena retells Israel's sin with the daughters of Moab, Phinehas's zeal, the second census, the daughters of Zelophehad, the war against Midian, and the cities of refuge.
Pistis Sophia 147Anonymous · 3rd century
Commentary on Daniel 1.22Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-204 · Susanna as a teacher of the church: men are urged to imitate Joseph and women Susanna, resisting seducers and heretics and choosing a brief death rather than sin.
Exhortation to Chastity 9Tertullian · ca. 208 · Tertullian argues that second marriage is akin to sexual immorality, since it arises from the same desire of the flesh, and that permitting a second marriage leaves no limit to further ones.
On Monogamy 9Tertullian · ca. 210–217 · As man may not separate by divorce those whom God joined, so he may not join by marriage those whom God has separated by death; any union with another after the first is adultery.
On Modesty 1Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Tertullian laments the decay of modesty and attacks a bishop's edict forgiving adultery and sexual immorality after penance, defending his New Prophecy view that such sins, like second marriage, exclude from the church.
On Modesty 4Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Tertullian defines his terms, adultery and sexual immorality covering every union outside marriage, including secret unions not declared before the church, and excludes unnatural vices entirely.
On Modesty 5Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · In the Decalogue adultery stands between idolatry and murder, bound to both; it cannot be pardoned while they are not.
On Modesty 6Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Old Testament examples of pardon do not apply, since Christ has fulfilled and sharpened the law; flesh renewed in baptism is the body and temple of Christ, and only a precedent from the new era would count.
On Modesty 12Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · The apostolic decree of Acts 15 places sexual immorality between idolatry and bloodshed as sins the Spirit forbids, so, like them, it cannot be pardoned by the church.
On Modesty 14Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Tertullian argues from the severe tone of 1 Corinthians that the man forgiven in 2 Corinthians was one of those merely rebuked, not the incestuous man whom Paul condemned.
On Modesty 15Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · The rest of 2 Corinthians, with its calls to holiness and separation from impurity, shows Paul could not have restored the incestuous man to communion.
On Modesty 16Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Paul's teaching on the body as Christ's temple, on marriage as a concession against sexual immorality, and on divorce and continence shows he could never pardon adultery or incest after baptism.
On Modesty 17Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Paul's letters to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans, Ephesians, and Colossians all forbid sexual immorality after baptism, so one doubtful passage cannot outweigh them.
On Modesty 19Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Neither Revelation's call to Jezebel nor 1 John's promises of cleansing grant pardon for adultery after baptism; John distinguishes daily sins, forgiven through Christ, from deadly sins such as murder, idolatry, apostasy, adultery, and sexual immorality.
Refutation of All Heresies 5.26.20Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · In Justin's myth, the abandoned Eden has Babel (Aphrodite) cause adultery and the breakup of marriages to torment Elohim's spirit in humans.
Refutation of All Heresies 5.26.23Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · In Justin's myth Naas seduces Eve and abuses Adam, the origin of adultery and of sex between males, while Elohim's ascent shows the way up.
Refutation of All Heresies 6.19.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus charges Simon's followers with promiscuity, which they call perfect love, claiming that the redeemed cannot sin.
Fragment on 1 Corinthians (Jenkins § 34, part 1)Origen · ca. 226-254 · Origen argues from Moses at Sinai and the priest's question to David that married people should abstain for a time before prayer, and much more before receiving the eucharistic bread.
Commentary on John 20.178Origen · ca. 230–248 · It is harder to see how sexual sins can be the devil's own desires.
Commentary on John 20.179Origen · ca. 230–248 · The devil desires that people sin sexually and instills that desire in those who serve him; in this sense he sins first.
Homilies on Ezekiel 7.10Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · Moral teaching is milk for beginners and the mysteries of Scripture are solid food; Jerusalem’s “threefold” immorality is sin in flesh, soul, and spirit.
Homilies on Joshua 5.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Baptism, the second circumcision, removes the reproach of Egypt, but sin after baptism, especially sexual immorality and the superstitions of astrology and omens, brings back a heavier reproach.
Homilies on Joshua 8.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Joshua’s feigned flight teaches the virtue of fleeing sin, especially sexual immorality, anger, and avarice, and the double tree signifies the twofold power of the cross, a tree of the knowledge of good and evil on which Christ and the devil both hung.
Homilies on Leviticus 11.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen distinguishes commandments from judgments with penalties and argues that the law's death penalty for adultery purged the sinner, whereas Christians, spared bodily punishment, must be purged by repentance or face future judgment.
Homilies on Numbers 20.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen recounts how Balaam counselled Balak to defeat Israel by seducing it into sexual immorality and idolatry, urges Christians to arm themselves with the virtues against such darts, and explains “the teaching of Balaam” in Revelation as doing what Balaam did.
Homilies on Numbers 20.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Worse than bodily immorality is the “general” immorality of the soul that abandons its marriage to the Word for the embraces of demons; the soul always bears children, virtues or sins, and sinful desires must be dashed against the rock of Christ while still small.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 6.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The penitent is bowed down by his sins like the tax collector and mourns them; sins of the flesh are the devil’s strength “in the loins”; the one who falls from the Church after enlightenment is like a rich man exiled to a barren island, groaning before God.
Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes 7Gregory Thaumaturgus · 3rd century · Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 7: mourning, wisdom, and the fear of God are better than revelry; the speaker, having lost wisdom, was ensnared by desire.
On the Good of Modesty 2Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · The writer urges the faithful, who are the temple of God and members of Christ, to keep chastity, as the church is Christ's virgin bride.
On the Good of Modesty 3Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · Chastity is praised as the honor of body and marriage, while unchastity ruins property, families, and inheritance, and even turns to sex between men against nature.
On the Good of Modesty 8Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · Joseph is the first example of chastity: he fled Potiphar's wife, was falsely accused and imprisoned, and was raised by God to rule Egypt.
On the Good of Modesty 9Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · Susanna is the example of a chaste woman: she resisted the two lustful elders, was falsely accused, and was delivered by God.
On the Good of Modesty 13Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · Because the flesh easily falls, men and women must guard chastity with discipline of the senses, sober speech, and the avoidance of touch.
On the Shows 6Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · The stage plays and pantomimes teach adultery and shamelessness in public, so a Christian who may not even think of vice cannot watch them.
On the Singleness of Clerics 2Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The author urges his clergy to learn from others' falls and not to trust that chastity can survive when men and women live together, any more than one can carry fire without being burned.
On the Singleness of Clerics 7Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · A cleric who refuses marriage but lives with a woman shows hidden desire, like one who abstains from wine but keeps it about him; even if chaste, he brings scandal and blasphemy on the faith.
On the Singleness of Clerics 8Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Clergy must avoid giving scandal to unbelievers and the weak; like the aged Eleazar, who refused even to pretend to break the Law lest the young be misled, they must set a blameless example.
On the Singleness of Clerics 39Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · A long encomium of solitary chastity, which alone overcomes the evils of cohabitation and puts to death the members that are on earth.
Against Celsus 4.26Origen · ca. 248 · If anyone deserves to be called worms, it is idolaters and the sexually licentious, not Christians who rise from creation to the Creator, pray to him, endure death, and keep their bodies chaste as temples of God.
Against Celsus 4.45Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus calls Lot and his daughters worse than Thyestes; Origen, noting that Scripture neither praises nor blames them, observes that the Stoics defend such an act in a hypothetical end of the world, which Lot's daughters believed had come.
Against Celsus 4.46Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus picks out the discreditable family stories of Genesis but ignores Joseph's chastity, which surpasses Bellerophon's, as he chose prison rather than sin and silently left his cause to God.
Against Celsus 4.63Origen · ca. 248 · Origen rejects Celsus's claim that the amount of evil is fixed, citing Chrysippus's history of how prostitution spread step by step into the cities.
Against Celsus 7.63Origen · ca. 248 · The same act can spring from different doctrines, as Stoics, Epicureans, and the uneducated all avoid adultery for very different reasons, so Christians' refusal of images must be judged by its reasons.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 43Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Spiritually, the pregnant and nursing are souls in whom the word is still immature and who are easily seduced by heresy; the praiseworthy flight is from sexual immorality, every sin, and false doctrine, to the mountains of the Scriptures, while Christ is awake in the soul.
Commentary on Matthew 12.7Origen · ca. 246–248 · Sins of the heart alone, such as adultery in the heart, are punished, though less than the act; a woman violated against her will remains chaste in heart though not pure in body.
Commentary on Matthew 14.24Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen discusses Jesus' exception for sexual immorality, asks whether a man may divorce a wife guilty of poisoning, murder, or theft, notes other ways a husband can make his wife commit adultery, and teaches that celibacy is a gift God gives to those who ask.
Commentary on Romans 1.19Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen discusses Paul's three 'givings up' (Rom 1:24, 26, 28) and proposes that all the causes and all the punishments be read together; those who judge others for what they do condemn themselves.
To Donatus 9Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · In private, people commit shameful acts, including men with men, which they condemn in public.
To Quirinus 3.63Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Sexual immorality is a graver sin, because it is committed against one's own body.
Letter 13.5Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Some confessors share beds with women, quarrel, and revile others; the tongue that confessed Christ must stay pure, and confession is a true renunciation of the world.
Letter 55.21Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Some earlier African bishops refused reconciliation to adulterers, yet did not break unity with those who granted it; each bishop answers to the Lord for his own practice.
Letter 55.26Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · If Novatian judges hearts, let him also expel adulterers, whose sin, willful and against the body, is worse than that of those who took certificates; yet Paul allows even them penance.
Symposium 2.3Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Marcella objects: if God forms every child, is he at work even in children born of adultery?
Symposium 2.4Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Theophila answers with a parable: a hidden craftsman shapes all the clay brought to him, even clay wrongly put in another's opening, but punishes the one who put it there.
Symposium 2.5Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · The house is the hidden process of generation and the craftsman is God's creative power; seed, like any material, is not evil in itself, but adulterers who misuse it are to be punished.
Symposium 9.4Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · The branches of Tabernacles are faith, study of Scripture, love, righteousness, and above all chastity, which virgins bear in full and chaste married people in smaller measure.
Lepr. 5Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The leprosy of the Law signifies sinful passions, which Christ commands us to root out at the seed, as with lustful looking and anger, and which must be shown to the priests.
Res. 1.59Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Paul's 'mind of the flesh' is the flesh's impulse toward sin, not the flesh itself, which can be brought under God's law, as virginity, self-control and Paul's commands about the body show.
Apostolic Church Order 6Anonymous · ca. 300 · The commandments of the way of life: against murder, adultery, sexual immorality, abortion, falsehood and hatred.
Apostolic Church Order 8Anonymous · ca. 300 · Lust and anger, given room, become demons that enlarge themselves in the soul and lead it to ruin.
Apostolic Church Order 9Anonymous · ca. 300 · Foul speech and wandering eyes lead to adultery.
Canon 7Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · A baptized person who falls again into sexual sin after penance for adultery is refused communion even at death.
Canon 18Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · Clergy who commit adultery while in office are refused communion even at death.
Canon 70Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · A husband who knowingly tolerates his wife's adultery is refused communion; if he leaves her, he receives it after ten years.
Canon 78Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · A married Christian who commits adultery with a Jewish or pagan woman is excluded; if exposed by another, for five years.
Against the Nations 4.26Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · The pagans' own writings tell of the gods' countless seductions and of their love for boys.
Church History 8.14.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Maxentius turned to every vice, taking senators' wives from their husbands, abusing them, and sending them back.
Church History 8.14.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Maximin seduced women and carried off virgins in every city he passed through.
Church History 8.14.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Christian women, strengthened by God's word, endured the same trials as men, and some chose death over rape.
Church History 8.14.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · A noble Christian woman of Alexandria resisted Maximin's advances; unwilling to kill her, he exiled her and seized her property.
Church History 8.14.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Many women endured torture rather than be violated, but the most admirable was a noble woman at Rome whom Maxentius tried to abuse.
Church History 8.14.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Roman woman, whose husband the prefect let the tyrant's agents take her, killed herself with a sword rather than submit.
Homilies 3.68Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · The presbyters and all believers should promote marriage, even for older people, because adultery, the sin most hated by God, spreads like rabies through the church.
Homilies 4.20Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Clement rejects the philosophers’ view that adultery and similar acts are sins only by convention, since they cause strife and murder.
Homilies 4.21Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Even undetected adultery breeds evils: desertion, plots, theft, abortion, and children who inherit from a man who is not their father.
Homilies 5.10Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Appion's letter argues that adultery is good because it obeys Eros, the oldest of the gods, and resisting desire is impiety.
Homilies 13.13Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter teaches that chastity brings good outcomes and adultery destruction, and that God rewards chastity even among the unbaptized in this life, though salvation is for the baptized.
Homilies 13.14Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter teaches that a chaste woman must flee at once from any illicit love, and that the one sin of adultery brings punishment even on one who does all other good.
Homilies 13.19Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter declares that one adultery is many murders of the soul, defiling the breath of God within a person and leading to eternal fire.
Recognitions 3.5Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · In the bracketed passage, Peter argues from Jesus' teaching on adultery and desire that the commandment is addressed to the free, immortal soul rather than to the body.
Recognitions 7.38Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Mattidia is baptized in the sea and dines with her sons, and Peter teaches that chastity is rewarded and must be guarded by flight from temptation.
Recognitions 10.41Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Niceta explains the allegory: the banquet is the world, Peleus and Thetis the dry and moist elements, Juno, Minerva, and Venus chastity, courage, and lust, and Paris the untrained mind that chooses lust and brings ruin.
Letter to Zenas and Serenus 15Anonymous · 4th century (disputed) · Counsel on honourable and careful conduct toward women and against vanity and lust.
On Sodom, lines 1–24Anonymous · 4th-5th century (disputed) · After the flood and God's covenant of the rainbow, a new impiety arose, and Sodom, given over to unnatural lust, deserved destruction by fire.
Divine Institutes 1.20.15Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Placing Cupids in gymnasia was a wicked means of corrupting boys.
Divine Institutes 3.15.15Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Aristippus excused his affair with the courtesan Lais with a clever saying.
Divine Institutes 3.15.19Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Aristippus's teaching that bodily pleasure is the highest good came from the brothel.
Divine Institutes 3.21.5Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Common wives abolish chastity and marital fidelity.
Divine Institutes 3.22.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Plato's community amounts to adultery and lust.
Divine Institutes 3.22.8Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Plato's scheme makes men debauchees and women prostitutes.
Divine Institutes 5.8.7Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Knowing God condemns lust beyond procreation would end adultery and prostitution.
Divine Institutes 5.9.17Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Sexual vices, castration, gladiatorial self-selling, and corrupt judges are theirs too.
Divine Institutes 6.5.16Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Restrained lust preserves chastity.
Divine Institutes 6.16.9Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Sexual desire within marriage is blameless; outside it, a grave vice.
Divine Institutes 6.23.4Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The devil twists sexual desire toward evil.
Divine Institutes 6.23.7Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The devil established brothels.
Divine Institutes 6.23.8Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · He brought in homosexual acts against nature and God's ordinance.
Divine Institutes 6.23.9Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The abuse of children is condemned.
Divine Institutes 6.23.11Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · He condemns a still more shameful practice.
Divine Institutes 6.23.15Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Where marriage is impossible, continence; God forbids adultery and prostitution.
Divine Institutes 6.23.16Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Sexual sin defiles the mind, which is cleansed only slowly.
Divine Institutes 6.23.21Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Cultivate modesty and chastity beyond what law requires.
Divine Institutes 6.23.24Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Unlike Roman law, God's law does not excuse the husband.
Divine Institutes 6.23.30Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Unfaithful wives excuse themselves by their husbands' infidelity.
Divine Institutes 6.23.34Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Even the thought of adultery must be avoided.
On the Workmanship of God 13.2Lactantius · ca. 303–305 · The wicked turn God's holy provision for procreation into prostitution and lust, seeking only barren pleasure.
Preparation for the Gospel 2.3.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Cinyras introduced the lewd rites of Aphrodite to deify a prostitute.
Preparation for the Gospel 2.3.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Clement exposes the shameful origin and rites of Aphrodite.
Preparation for the Gospel 4.16.22Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Ritual prostitution at Heliopolis in Phoenicia shows that these gods are wicked demons.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.7.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Philo: the law punishes pederasty, adultery, rape of children, and prostitution with death.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.8.32Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Josephus: the law allows only natural union with a wife for children and punishes male intercourse with death.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.8.34Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Adultery and the rape of a betrothed virgin are punished by death.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.8.48Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Josephus: death is the penalty for adultery, rape, and male intercourse.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.9.22Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Other nations practice male intercourse and incest; Israel is set apart.
Preparation for the Gospel 13.20.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Moses punishes pederasty with death; Plato does not, but would put to death a slave who failed to report found treasure.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 33.3Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Common wives would destroy families and chastity.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 56.6Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Sexual desire exists for procreation; misused it leads to adultery and corruption.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 57.3Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Sexual desire belongs within marriage; unchastity brings eternal death.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 59.6Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · “Do not commit adultery” also forbids resorting to prostitutes.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 61.7Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · A husband who has relations with any other woman, free or slave, is an adulterer before God.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 61.9Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Chastity excludes even lustful thoughts.
On the Deaths of the Persecutors 8.5Lactantius · ca. 314–315 · Maximian enriched himself by bloodshed and indulged his lusts with boys and noblemen's daughters.
On the Deaths of the Persecutors 38.1Lactantius · ca. 314–315 · Maximinus's worst vice was unbridled lust.
On the Deaths of the Persecutors 38.2Lactantius · ca. 314–315 · Women were inspected for his bed and drowned if they refused.
On the Deaths of the Persecutors 38.3Lactantius · ca. 314–315 · Husbands of violated wives killed themselves; no woman was safe.
On the Deaths of the Persecutors 39.1Lactantius · ca. 314–315 · His lust extended even to the empress Valeria.
Canon 16Anonymous · 314 · Penances for unnatural sexual sin are graded by age and marital state, from twenty years to communion only at death.
Canon 20Anonymous · 314 · Adultery is punished by seven years of graded penance.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.6.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Moses forbids adultery; the gospel forbids even the desire.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.6.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Job guarded even his eyes from desire for another man’s wife, as the gospel requires.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.6.19Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Job explains why adulterous desire must be guarded against.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.6.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Unlike sorcerers who seduce women, Jesus forbade even lustful looking.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.10.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Leviticus forbids unlawful unions and says the nations were driven out for such defilement.
Against the Heathen 12Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · The myths of the gods’ adulteries, incest, quarrels, and wounds show them to be weak and wicked men, yet their worshipers deify the very vices their own laws punish.
Against the Heathen 26Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Temple prostitution, ritual emasculation, and the vices described in Romans 1 are learned from gods whose own myths are full of the same deeds.
On the Incarnation 5.5Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Humanity fell even into unnatural vice, as Paul describes in Romans 1.
Theophany 2.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Letter to Amun 1Athanasius of Alexandria · before 356 · Athanasius tells the monk Amun that involuntary bodily emissions are no sin, since God made the body good, and distinguishes lawful marriage from immorality, and marriage from the higher way of virginity.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 8.6Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Aphrodite's shrine on Lebanon was a place of sexual licence, ritual effeminacy, and adultery.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 13.11Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Following the myths of their gods, pagans fell into every licentiousness, including homosexual acts condemned by Paul.
Demonstration 18.9Aphrahat · 337-345 · Examples from the earth before rain to Adam, the sons of Seth, Samson, David, Amnon, and Solomon show beauty in virginity and ruin through sexual desire.
Life of Constantine 3.55.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Eusebius describes the shrine as a place of sexual license.
Life of Constantine 3.58.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · At Heliopolis in Phoenicia sacred prostitution had been practiced.
Life of Constantine 3.58.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Constantine forbade the practice by law and wrote urging the people to know God.
Life of Antony 6Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Defeated, the devil appeared to Antony as a black boy, confessed himself the spirit of sexual immorality, and fled when Antony rebuked him.
On Not Agreeing with Heretics 11Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · From Paul's commands to expel the incestuous man and to shun immoral brothers, Lucifer argues that heresy is spiritual sexual immorality and that the church must avoid the Arians.
Letter 160Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil answers a letter circulating under Diodorus's name that allowed a man to marry his deceased wife's sister: church custom forbids it, Lev 18:18 does not permit it, and Lev 18:6 forbids it.
Letters 198, 199Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil explains to Eusebius why his letters are few and that he is near death; then (Letter 199, the Second Canonical Letter) he answers Amphilochius on oaths, fallen virgins, monks' vows, sexual immorality and adultery, abduction, unlawful and repeated marriages, deserted spouses, rebaptism of Encratites, and related cases.
Letter 217Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil's third canonical letter to Amphilochius: after personal news, canons 51–84 set the penitential periods for murder, adultery, fornication, incest, perjury, sorcery, apostasy, and other sins, and stress that the fruits of repentance, not time alone, decide.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 69Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's sixty-ninth rule sets out, in Scripture's own lists, the vices that are forbidden together and carry a sentence, and the virtues that are approved together and receive blessings.
Letter 341Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 360–390 · Gregory sternly rebukes a young man of good family who is squandering his estate on women and has carried off virgins consecrated to God.
Paraenesis, or Exhortation to Penitence 5Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian shows from Scripture that idolatry, murder, and sexual immorality are deadly sins, and warns against flattering those who have committed them.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 89Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Law and the Prophets remove every vice, folly, cowardice, licentiousness and injustice, and guard eyes, tongue and body against pleasure.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 92Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Law teaches all four virtues: prudence from God, self-control in Joseph’s refusal of Potiphar’s wife, and courage in Judith’s venture.
Oration 37.5Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · The Pharisees test Christ on divorce; Gregory says some questions deserve silencing, but this one honours chastity, and he rejects the civil law that punishes a wife's adultery but leaves a husband's unchastity unpunished.
Oration 37.6Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · God's law treats father and mother, man and woman, equally, and Paul's comparison of marriage to Christ and the church requires chastity of both spouses.
Oration 37.18Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Scripture calls any sin, and especially offence against God, fornication and adultery.
Tractates 1.2.8Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno contrasts true love with the destructive erotic love pictured as Cupid, which ruined Adam and Eve and assailed Susanna and Joseph, citing 1 John 2:15–16.
Tractates 1.4.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno praises chastity, which guards family life and makes the church, Christ's virgin bride, fruitful in holy children.
Tractates 1.4.2Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno describes unchastity, which, like Antichrist under Christ's name, poses as chastity while ruining families, nations and kingdoms.
Tractates 1.4.3Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno describes unchastity's cosmetics and its link to idolatry, since the pagan gods Jupiter, Hercules and Venus were exalted through lust.
Tractates 1.4.4Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno condemns husbands who commit adultery, citing Christ's saying on putting away a wife and Paul's equal rule for husband and wife, and teaches that a Christian must be either continent or married.
Tractates 1.4.5Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno gives Joseph's refusal of Potiphar's wife as an example of chastity rewarded by God.
Tractates 1.4.6Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno tells the story of Susanna, falsely accused by the elders and vindicated by Daniel, as an example of chastity.
Tractates 2.16.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno takes Susanna, condemned by false witnesses and saved by Daniel, as an example that God is with the just.
Hexaemeron 7.6Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · Husbands too must lay aside harshness; Basil lists more marvels of the sea, the great sea monsters and small but dangerous fish, and closes the homily.
Homilies 1.9Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · The rich man's luxury and the fasting of the saints, of John the Baptist, of Paul and of Christ himself show the value of fasting.
Homilies 14.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Men and women danced together drunk, so that girls lost their virginity and men committed adultery by looking; Basil prescribes fasting, psalms, tears and almsgiving, and tells the sober to separate from the unrepentant.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 5:1Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The incest at Corinth is worse than anything among pagans, and those who tolerated it share the guilt.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6:9–10Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul reminds the Corinthians that the unrighteous, including the sexually immoral, will not inherit God's kingdom.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6:12Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster rejects reading 'all things are lawful' as permitting fornication; Paul means his right to support, which he waived so as not to be beholden to those he rebuked.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6:15Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Bodies joined to a harlot cease to be Christ's members.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6:16Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Sexual union makes two one body, even in sin, as Gen 2:24 says.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6:18Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Fornication binds the soul to the flesh and sins against one's own body, the wife being a portion of the man; Ambrosiaster rejects Novatian's view that it is an unforgivable sin against Christ's body and the Holy Spirit.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 7:2Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · To avoid fornication each should have a spouse; renouncing lawful marriage leads to unlawful acts, as among the Manichees.
Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:2–6Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul warns that God’s will is their holiness: to abstain from sexual immorality, to keep their bodies undefiled, and to deal honestly with their brothers.
Commentary on Ephesians 5:3Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Greed, ranked with sexual immorality, is a grave sin incompatible with holiness.
Commentary on Romans 1:26Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster interprets Rom 1:26 as women having sexual relations with women, rejecting another interpretation.
Commentary on Romans 1:27Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster takes Paul’s mention of men as clarifying that the women of v. 26 had relations with women, and calls such acts the recompense for idolatry.
Commentary on Romans 1:28Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster explains the vice list of Rom 1:28–30 as growing from malice, and notes that Paul names sexual immorality, which includes adultery, so that the lesser sin, tolerated by Roman law, would not seem unpunished.
Commentary on Romans 13:13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Believers must avoid dissolute banquets, drunkenness, sexual impurity, strife and jealousy, and put on Christ, keeping the new garment of the wedding feast.
Question 102, section 17Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · From 2 Cor 12:21 Ambrosiaster argues that penance for sexual sin is completed in this life and that those who complete it are readmitted to communion.
Question 124, section 7Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Lust is worse in the poor, who lack the means to indulge it, while chastity is more praiseworthy in the rich, and most of all in a king, who could sin with impunity and abstains only for fear of God.
Letter 22.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that the devil's chief power over people lies in sexual desire, citing Job and many scriptural references to the loins.
Letter 22.12Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome cites Samson, David, Solomon, and Amnon as strong men brought down by sexual desire.
Letter 54.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains, from Scripture and medicine, that rich food and wine inflame lust, which alone of the vices is rooted in nature.
Letter 55.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome gives several interpretations of Paul's saying that the sexually immoral man sins against his own body.
Letter 55.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome answers that a woman who left an adulterous husband and married another while he lives is an adulteress and cannot be admitted to communion without penance.
Letter 64.21Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome gives the spiritual meaning of the golden plate and of the linen drawers, which signify chastity known only to God.
Letter 77.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that Fabiola divorced a vicious first husband and remarried in ignorance of the gospel's rule, which forbids a Christian woman to remarry while her husband lives.
Letter 117.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome warns the daughter of the dangers to her chastity at the country houses and banquets she visits with relatives, where flattery and temptation abound.
Letter 123.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains each clause of 1 Timothy 5:14 as a safeguard against sexual immorality, concluding that second and even third marriages are allowed the incontinent only as the lesser evil.
Letter 125.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome tells Rusticus to honor his widowed mother and warns against ascetics who form suspect partnerships with women under the name of spiritual kinship.
Letter 147.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome begins his rebuke of the deacon Sabinianus, comparing him to Pharaoh and to the prosperous wicked of Psalm 73.
Letter 147.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome recalls Sabinianus's earlier sins and charges him with trying to seduce a virgin in the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem.
Letter 147.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome describes Sabinianus's secret vows to the virgin in the cave and his planned elopement, which was discovered.
Letter 147.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome recounts Sabinianus's adultery with the wife of a powerful barbarian in Italy, his flight, and his arrival in the East pretending to be a monk.
Letter 148.29Jerome · ca. 370–419 · The writer expounds 1 Corinthians 7:1–7 as teaching that continence in marriage should be undertaken by mutual consent.
Ancoratus 107.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Teachers lead people from idolatry, adultery, and fornication to chastity.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 24.3.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius charges that Basilides permitted promiscuity.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 25.1.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Nicolaus claimed that daily intercourse is necessary for salvation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 25.2.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · From this myth came obscene practices.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 25.4.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The name Prunicus signifies lust.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 25.6.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Nicolaus suppresses the truth by lust.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.3.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius charges the Gnostics with promiscuity and eating human flesh and bodily fluids.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.4.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They collect semen in their hands and pray.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.11.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Some practice masturbation and consume the semen.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.11.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius charges them with same-sex intercourse.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.13.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The “Levites” of the sect practice same-sex intercourse and mock virginity.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.16.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul's condemnation in Romans 1 applies to them.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 27.4.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius charges them with every sexual vice.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.21.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Their 'perfect' do forbidden things without fear.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.21.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Some secretly seduce the women they teach, as returning women have confessed.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.21.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Others openly take other men's wives.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.21.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Others who claimed to live with women as sisters were exposed by pregnancies.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.21.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They teach a saying that spirituals must love a woman, while worldly people are ruined by it.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 32.4.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanes taught that wives should be held in common, citing Plato's Republic.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.2.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The woman repays Marcus with money and her body.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.3.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Women who returned to the Church confessed that Marcus used love charms on them.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.3.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · A deacon's wife in Asia was seduced by Marcus.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 45.3.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The body's God-given appetites, including sexual desire, are not evil in themselves.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 63.1.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The sect rejects marriage yet is licentious.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 63.1.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They are accused of practicing the sin of Onan.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 63.1.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Their practice is compared to Onan’s.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 63.1.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Their chastity is a pretense to avoid detection.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.53.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · It is the visible body that is joined to a prostitute.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.53.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Sexual immorality is sin against one’s own body.
On Cain and Abel 1.14Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · Pleasure is portrayed as the harlot of Proverbs and the hostess of a debauched feast, inviting all to eat, drink and enjoy life because tomorrow they die.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.1.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · Coveting a neighbour’s wife or servants is already adultery and theft in the mind.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.1.8Anonymous · ca. 380 · As one would not want one’s wife looked at with lust, one must not look so at another’s.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.3.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · If a man yields to a woman he has attracted, eternal death follows.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.7.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · Wisdom guards from the strange woman.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.7.5Anonymous · ca. 380 · The harlot roams the streets and lies in wait.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.7.6Anonymous · ca. 380 · The harlot entices the young man with her invitation.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.7.9Anonymous · ca. 380 · One must flee the harlot, who has slain many.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.11.8Anonymous · ca. 380 · All unlawful and unnatural intercourse is abhorred.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.28.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · Sodomy and bestiality are against nature, adultery and sexual immorality against the law; all are punished.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.28.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · Unnatural sins undo nature; adultery wrongs another's marriage; sexual immorality corrupts one's own flesh for pleasure.
Apostolic Constitutions 7.2.9Anonymous · ca. 380 · Adultery divides one flesh; the corruption of boys, sexual immorality and theft are forbidden, with biblical examples.
Apostolic Constitutions 8.32.4Anonymous · ca. 380 · Married converts must be faithful; the unmarried must avoid immorality and marry lawfully.
Apostolic Constitutions 8.32.7Anonymous · ca. 380 · Brothel-keepers and prostitutes must give up their trade.
Homily 5, part 5.5Asterius of Amasea · ca. 380-410 · Asterius makes one exception: a husband who separates from an adulterous wife is justified, since adultery destroys both purposes of marriage; and he insists that the law of chastity binds husbands as much as wives, against Roman law.
5.6Asterius of Amasea · ca. 380-410 · Asterius ends his homily on divorce by warning that God judges the sexually immoral whatever human lawgivers allow; the scan then continues with the opening of his homily on Daniel and Susanna.
Homily 5, part 6.2Asterius of Amasea · ca. 380-410 · In his homily on Susanna, Asterius presents the young captive Daniel as judge of the elders, denounces the lustful elders who slandered a lawful marriage, and sets Susanna beside Joseph as a model of chastity.
Homily 5, part 6.3Asterius of Amasea · ca. 380-410 · Asterius retells Susanna's trial, the elders' false accusation, her appeal to God, and Daniel's cross-examination that condemned them, and urges wives to imitate her chastity; the text breaks off.
Canonical Letter, Migne PG 45:227Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390 · Gregory distinguishes apostasy to sorcery from deceived recourse to it, then defines sexual immorality and adultery: there is one lawful union, and adultery, which wrongs another, receives double the penance.
Canonical Letter, Migne PG 45:229Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390 · Gregory sets nine years of graded penance for sexual immorality, which the bishop may shorten for earnest penitents, double that for adultery and sins against nature, and begins on murder, distinguishing voluntary from involuntary.
Liber Orsiesii 19Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · The brothers are urged to watch, obey their fathers, keep their bodies chaste as God's temple, and be ready like the wise virgins.
Book of Heresies 57.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The Florians or Carpocratians practise promiscuous intercourse at night.
Book of Heresies 73.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The Borborians praise carnal desire.
Second Apology of David 13Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · No one can carry the fire of lust in his heart without being burned, as Solomon warned.
Second Apology of David 14Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · The harlot enters by the window of the eyes; one must avoid every encounter with wantonness, as Proverbs warns.
Second Apology of David 17Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · Avoid the occasions of sin: looking at a strange woman tosses the mind like a ship in a storm.
On the Life of Moses 345Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · The plagues of blood and frogs figure the corruption of faith by false teaching and the filthy “amphibious” life of the licentious, which shows itself in house, table, and secret life; the hardening of Pharaoh raises the question of God’s part in evil.
On the Life of Moses 423Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · The Israelites, unbeaten in battle, were conquered by the Midianite women; Phinehas’s spear stopped God’s anger. Pleasure is the hardest enemy of all, which is why Christ cut out its root in the lustful look.
On the Duties of the Clergy 1.50Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · The clergy, like the Levites whose portion is God, must be free of greed, married only once, continent, and guardians of the mysteries, exercising the four virtues and discerning when duties change.
On the Duties of the Clergy 3.19Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Israel’s war against Benjamin to avenge the outrage at Gibeah shows how highly the forefathers valued chastity and the honourable, even at great cost.
Exposition of Psalm 118 1.12.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The fornicator is never alone: the Father, the Son, and the angels are present.
Exposition of Psalm 118 1.12.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Christ sees the adulterer, who has entered the brothel already in his thoughts.
Exposition of Psalm 118 1.12.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · By adultery in the heart, Christ says, a man makes himself a brothel.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.30.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Shut the windows of the eyes against another’s wife and against the harlot.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.30.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Death enters also through the window of seductive words; guard yourself from another man’s wife.
Exposition of Psalm 118 6.20.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The eyes are windows by which lust and greed bring in death.
Exposition of Psalm 118 7.32.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · At night we should recall God’s precepts on chastity to quench lust.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.35.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The man who looks at a woman to lust has already sinned; another falls by a sudden glance for lack of forethought.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.35.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Forethought guards against lust; even after a sudden glance, turning to God’s testimonies frees one from captivity.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.35.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · One gripped by love for a woman should consider Christ and dash his desires against the rock of Christ.
Exposition of Psalm 118 11.13.4Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The cooling snow of God’s word, continence, and fasting quench the heat of lust.
Exposition of Psalm 118 11.25.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Lot, untouched by Sodom’s fire, was burned by the incest of his daughters.
Exposition of Psalm 118 11.28.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Christ, the Father’s mouth, forbade even adultery in the heart, advancing chastity.
Exposition of Psalm 118 16.3.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The eye tempts, but Christ places the sin of adultery in the heart, not the eye.
Letter 111.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine teaches that women who suffer rape without consent remain chaste, since the guilt is the attacker's alone.
Letter 211.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine instructs the nuns on modest dress and conduct in public, warning that unchaste looks destroy chastity even without bodily sin.
Letter 220.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reproaches Boniface for remarrying after vowing continence, for letting Arians baptize his daughter and rebaptize consecrated women, and for reported concubines.
Letter 228.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine urges fearful clergy to fear spiritual ruin of their flocks more than bodily harm, adding that rape without consent does not violate chastity.
Letter 259.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine tells the widower Cornelius, who asked for a letter of consolation praising his wife, that he must first live chastely, since his own conduct is unlike hers.
Letter 259.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine rebukes Cornelius, a baptized old friend from his Manichaean days, for keeping many concubines while asking praise for his chaste dead wife.
Letter 262.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine tells Ecdicia that her husband, who had vowed continence with her, has fallen into adultery because she failed to treat him with conjugal obedience.
Soliloquies 1.14Augustine of Hippo · 386–387 · Reason tells Augustine that he will see God when nothing earthly delights him, reminds him how a night's thoughts of a woman's caresses showed that he is not yet healed, and Augustine, weeping, commits himself to God's care.
Homilies on Matthew 6.8John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Closing exhortation of Homily 6: the theater's mimed adulteries and naked performers corrupt spectators and households; nakedness began with disobedience; Chrysostom wounds his hearers deliberately to heal them.
Homilies on Matthew 7.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Preferring the theater's naked swimming women to the eucharistic 'spring' is spiritual shipwreck, worse than Pharaoh's drowning; spectators sin by desire even without the act; Chrysostom sends men to learn from their wives, and even from the ant.
Homilies on Matthew 7.7John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Closing exhortation of Homily 7: Christ's command against lustful looking binds married laymen as much as monks; husbands owe their wives the same chastity they demand of them; Chrysostom threatens a sharper sermon until the theater is abandoned.
Homilies on Matthew 17.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ extends the commandment against adultery to the lustful look, which kindles desire and leads to the deed, while permitting a chaste looking and love for one’s own wife; the warning applies equally to women who make themselves objects of desire.
Homilies on Matthew 17.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The Mosaic certificate of divorce was a concession to prevent worse crimes; Christ, having removed anger, forbids putting away a wife except for sexual immorality, makes the man who does so responsible for her adultery, and closes remarriage to the woman put away; he then turns to oaths.
Homilies on Matthew 37.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom describes the lewdness of the theater and argues that it overturns marriages, makes adulterers and stirs up riots, so that those who attend it, not those who would close it, overturn the city.
Homilies on Matthew 48.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Herodias asks for John’s head on a platter so as to silence his tongue; God permits the murder, crowning John and consoling all who suffer unjustly; Chrysostom warns against rash oaths and shows how sexual immorality breeds murder.
Homilies on Matthew 73.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christians who are temples of God become tombs when they harbor evil desires; Chrysostom rebukes men who come to church to gaze at women and boys, recalls that the partitions between men and women were added only later, and contrasts the women of the apostolic age with those of his own day.
Homilies on Matthew 75.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Prosperity in sin increases punishment, as David’s case shows; the same sin, such as sexual immorality, is punished differently according to time, office, wealth, baptism, knowledge, warnings received, place and kind, so that God’s judgment is exact.
Homilies on Matthew 84.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The Christian conquers not by doing evil but by suffering it, as martyrs and saints did and as Joseph did when, silent and imprisoned, he overcame both his brothers and the Egyptian woman, a type of Christ condemned in silence.
On 1 Cor 7:39, section 1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom expounds Rom 7:2 and 1 Cor 7:39: a wife is bound by law to her husband while he lives, so that even with a certificate of divorce her new union is adultery; only his death frees her to marry again.
On 1 Cor 7:39, section 3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom urges hearers neither to put away their spouses nor to marry those put away, since such unions are adultery punished at the judgment, calls a married man's resort to prostitutes adultery too, and explains 1 Cor 7:39 for wives and widows.
On 1 Cor 7:2, section 3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom urges that the poor be fed at weddings, blames demons for wedding ribaldry, and teaches that marriage exists chiefly for chastity, so that a married man's sexual immorality is adultery.
On 1 Cor 7:2, section 4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom argues that a married man who has relations with any woman, even a prostitute or slave, commits adultery, since by 1 Cor 7:3–4 his body belongs to his wife, against civil laws that punished only wives.
On 1 Cor 7:2, section 5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom describes the misery that a husband's unfaithfulness brings on his wife, warns of hell and of prostitutes' sorcery, contrasts the bitterness of the prostitute with the wife, and ends with 1 Cor 7:2–4.
On Abraham 1.4.25Ambrose · ca. 387–390 · Ambrose warns men preparing for baptism that any intercourse outside marriage is adultery, that the same chastity binds husband and wife, and that such sin gives wives an occasion for divorce.
Hexameron (Exameron) 5.19Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Husbands must be gentle guides, not masters, and must not commit adultery, which divides the one flesh God made; the adulteress is like the viper.
On Joseph 1Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Ambrose introduces Joseph as a model of chastity, following his treatments of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
On Joseph 2Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Joseph is a mirror of chastity, loved by his father more than his brothers, which roused their envy.
On Joseph 22Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Joseph ruled himself and kept his beauty chaste; the guilt of Potiphar's wife's desire was hers alone.
On Joseph 23Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Joseph resisted the eyes, words, and persistence of Potiphar's wife, showing himself truly master and free.
On Joseph 25Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Joseph fled leaving his garment, stripped but not naked, clothed in modesty, unlike Adam, who kept his clothes yet was naked through sin.
On Joseph 26Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Potiphar's wife accused Joseph falsely; he did not defend himself and went to prison as a martyr for chastity, and God did not desert him.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 37.33.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The devil works through the loins to bring adultery and sexual immorality.
On Free Choice of the Will 1.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Testing why adultery is evil, Augustine rejects the law, the golden rule, and condemnation by courts as the reason and locates the evil in lust (libido), which makes even the unfulfilled desire guilty.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine answers the Manichaean charge that baptized Christians should not marry, beget children, or own property, citing Paul's words on the body, marriage, and continence in 1 Corinthians 6–7, and closes the first book.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 2.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine recounts what he saw and heard in his nine years as a Manichaean Hearer at Carthage: Elect breaking their rules, harassing women in the street, an assault at a vigil, mutual accusations of adultery, theater-going, and a teacher who seduced a consecrated virgin and excused himself by Mani's teaching on Adam.
Tractates on Matthew 9.1Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains that Christ forbids not only adultery but the lust that is its root, citing Sirach, Proverbs, Job and James.
Sermon 8.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The fifth commandment against adultery is opposed by the plague on cattle: the adulterer lives like a beast, though reason and the image of God enable a human being to restrain desire.
Sermon 8.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The ninth commandment against coveting a neighbor's wife is opposed by the plague of darkness: to attempt another man's wife is the thickest darkness of madness.
Sermon 9.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The adversary with whom we must agree is God's word, which contradicts our sins against each commandment: superstition, belittling Christ, a carnal sabbath, dishonoring parents, hatred, and especially husbands' adultery.
Sermon 9.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine dwells on adultery because it is widespread: custom lets husbands sin with slave women while wives are prosecuted, but before God the sin is equal and husband and wife owe each other the same fidelity.
Sermon 9.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine strikes the fifth string, adultery: husbands who go to their slave women sin as wives would; a chaste wife keeps faith for Christ's sake even when her husband does not.
Sermon 9.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Men who say chastity is impossible are shamed by their chaste wives; custom laughs off husbands' sins with slave women while condemning other crimes, as though the man conquered by lust were the real man.
Sermon 9.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The unmarried man who goes to prostitutes breaks no single commandment by name, but he breaks the rule that contains all the commandments: do not do to another what you do not want done to you.
Sermon 9.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The man who goes to prostitutes wrongs God himself, for he corrupts in himself God's image and temple, just as stoning a man's portrait insults the man.
Sermon 9.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Grave sins like adultery require a change of life, not almsgiving; daily almsgiving cleanses only small daily sins, such as harsh words, excess in food, or intercourse with one's wife beyond what procreation requires.
Sermon 45.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Defilement of the spirit is lust, defilement of the flesh is the act of adultery; perfect sanctification cleanses both, not only the deed out of fear of men.
Sermon 45.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Only the fear of God perfects sanctification: fear of men may restrain the body from adultery, but the fear of God cleanses the heart, and a clean heart keeps the body clean.
Sermon 51.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Joseph, thinking Mary an adulteress, showed true justice: he would neither keep her out of carnal love nor punish or expose her, but planned to put her away quietly.
Sermon 51.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The patriarchs, even with several wives, sought intercourse only for children, as the marriage contract states; spouses who cannot keep to this should at least keep to each other, for intercourse beyond the need of procreation is a pardonable sin, conceded by Paul.
Sermon 51.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Eating and marriage sustain the human race; the wise come down to both out of duty, as Elijah ate to live, while the lustful fall into them; a man who marries only for children would welcome children without intercourse.
Sermon 51.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The patriarchs were allowed several wives only to multiply offspring; Christians should love their wives chastely and seek intercourse only for children, for the need of it is a punishment inherited from Adam.
Sermon 82.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · A bishop rebukes secret sins, such as hidden murder or adultery, in secret, without betraying the sinner, yet warns that adultery is a deadly wound.
Sermon 82.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine rebukes adultery publicly without naming anyone, so that the correction may be secret.
Sermon 82.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, so sins of the flesh such as adultery profane God’s temple.
Sermon 128.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The fight within is between the delight of adultery and the delight of chastity; the flesh’s desire against the spirit, unknown in paradise, came from the first sin and is felt only where the spirit is.
Sermon 128.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · To “fulfill” the desires of the flesh is to consent to them: one who has decided to commit adultery is already an adulterer, even if he lacks the opportunity.
Sermon 132.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The faithful who receive the Eucharist must live chastely: husbands must keep the fidelity they demand of their wives, and unmarried young men must keep themselves as pure as they want their brides to be, out of fear of God who sees everything.
Sermon 132.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Those who do not keep chastity should not come to the Lord’s table; Augustine must speak the truth like a servant paying out his master’s money, and he prays that the unchaste be converted.
Sermon 153.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Society praises the drunkard and lets a married man use harlots or his slave-girl without legal penalty, but God’s Law says “You shall not desire”; hearing it, the sinner recognizes his sin, tries to resist, fails, and becomes a transgressor.
Sermon 161.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Because Christ took a body and is our head, our bodies are his members; anyone who commits sexual immorality or adultery despises Christ in himself.
Sermon 161.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Our bodies are Christ's members and the Spirit's temple; the adulterer honors his wife's bedroom but not God's temple, and though he outlives the chaste, he will be cut off from the land of the living.
Sermon 162.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine poses the difficulty of 1 Corinthians 6:18: how can every other sin be “outside the body” when all the sins Paul lists, even those of the mind, are done in or through the body?
Sermon 162.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · First solution: Paul magnifies sexual immorality above other sins because in it alone lust so absorbs the mind into the body that it becomes the body's slave and can think of nothing else.
Sermon 162.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Second solution: Scripture also speaks of a general fornication, the soul's cleaving to the world instead of God; in this sense whoever loves the world sins against his own body, while other sins of frailty are outside it.
Sermon 162.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine sums up the two possible readings of 1 Corinthians 6:18: sexual immorality as the sin that most enslaves a person to the body, or the soul's general fornication, love of the world that turns away from God.
Sermon 216.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ paid our debt; the candidates, longing for the land of the living, must put to death sexual immorality and greed and, with the exorcisms of the Church, fight and renounce the devil.
Sermon 224.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The newly baptized are members of Christ by grace; they must imitate the few good Catholics, not the bad, and keep from sexual immorality, adultery, and other sins.
Sermon 224.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The devil tells adulterers that sins of the flesh are light, as he deceived Eve in paradise; but God's word proved true and the excuse did not avail.
Sermon 224.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Husbands must keep only to their wives and the unmarried come chaste to marriage; a married man's concubine, even his own slave, is a harlot, and keeping her leads to Gehenna.
Sermon 278.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Even in what is permitted one can sin by excess, as in married intercourse beyond the purpose of begetting children named in the marriage contract, or drunkenness with one’s own wine; the remedy is the Lord’s Prayer.
Sermon 307.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Gospel of John the Baptist’s beheading shows truth breeding hatred: John told Herod it was unlawful to have his brother’s wife, and Herodias, through her dancing daughter and Herod’s rash oath, had him killed.
Sermon 318.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The martyrs overcame not only the world's delights but its torments, fighting against the sin of denying Christ to the point of blood, as Susanna and Joseph resisted adultery; denying the truth is adultery of the heart, the corruption that began with Eve, and the martyrs turned her punishment, death, into victory.
Sermon 332.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine urges husbands to be faithful: the Apostle's word that the wife has no authority over her own body is matched by the husband's having none over his, so a husband's adultery is forbidden as much as a wife's.
Sermon 392.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine tells the candidates for baptism that concubinage is forbidden, and that marriage to anyone whose former spouse is living, including after repudiation, is adultery; a wife may be put away for sexual immorality, but the husband may not remarry while she lives.
Sermon 392.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine commands wives not to tolerate their husbands' sexual immorality but to bring it before the church, while yielding to them in property and all else, since in the marriage bed Paul made them equal.
Sermon 392.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine rebukes the double standard by which husbands will not bear adulterous wives but expect wives to bear adulterous husbands, calls husbands to lead in chastity, and bars known adulterers from communion.
Homily on 1 Cor, 19.3John Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom explains why a husband may cast out a wife who commits sexual immorality (that marriage is already dissolved) but must keep a willing unbelieving wife, and why a believer deserted or forced to impiety by an unbeliever is not enslaved.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains adultery of the heart as full consent to lust, sets out the three steps of sin (suggestion, delight, consent) after the pattern of the fall, and widens adultery and sexual immorality figuratively to every evil desire.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine asks how widely “sexual immorality” in the exception clause is to be taken, argues from 1 Cor 7 that it includes idolatry, unbelief, and every unlawful desire, holds that a woman who is put away should remain unmarried or be reconciled, and recounts without judgment a case from Antioch.
Letter 4.129 (to Strategius)Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Ten explanations of 1 Cor 6:18; the tenth: married partners are one body, so adultery alone is a sin against the spouse, which is why Christ allowed a wife to be put away for fornication only.
Against Jovinianus 1.7Jerome · 393 · Jerome expounds 1 Cor 7:1–9 and 1 Pet 3:1–7 to argue that marriage is allowed as a remedy against sexual immorality and that intercourse hinders prayer.
Against Jovinianus 2.37Jerome · 393 · Jerome traces Jovinian's teaching to old heresies, laments that it took root at Rome, and satirizes its message and followers.
Historia monachorum, chapter 20Rufinus of Aquileia · Greek original ca. 394-395; Rufinus's Latin ca. 404-406 · Dioscorus, a presbyter who examined his monks before communion and taught when nocturnal emissions do or do not involve sin.
On Continence 4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Christ's sayings on inner cleanness show that sins are committed in the heart by consent, even when the body is prevented from acting.
On Continence 27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Abstaining from one's wife in order to pursue adultery by magic is wickedness, not continence; true married continence moderates desire within marriage.
On Lying 10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Lying to escape sexual violation is not justified, since chastity belongs to the mind and is not lost by violence suffered without consent, while a lie corrupts the mind itself.
On Christian Doctrine 3.21Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · David's grief for Absalom and his repentance over Bathsheba show the patriarchs' temperance with women, whereas Solomon was ruled by lust.
Confessions 2.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine describes how in adolescence lust clouded his capacity for true love and he drifted further from God, who seemed silent.
Confessions 2.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine recalls how at sixteen he surrendered to lust while God embittered his pleasures, and how his family cared more for his eloquence than for arranging a marriage.
Confessions 2.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine recognizes that God spoke through his mother's warnings against fornication and adultery, which he scorned, even inventing sins to impress his companions.
Confessions 3.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine distinguishes sins against nature, such as those of Sodom, which are always wrong, from offenses against human custom, and teaches that God's commands must be obeyed even against custom.
Confessions 10.41Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Though he has renounced sexual relations, Augustine confesses that sexual images still trouble him in dreams.
Confessions 10.42Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine prays that God's grace will free him even from consent to lust in sleep.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus lists the patriarchs' sexual and violent deeds recorded in Scripture and says either the deeds or the records must be condemned.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine compares critics of the prophets to schoolboys who fault Virgil's licences, and warns that no one may excuse adultery by Abraham's union with Hagar.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says bodily pleasures are lawful only as far as needed to preserve the individual and the race; beyond that they are sins needing correction or, if defended, deserving condemnation.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine defends Abraham's calling Sarah his sister as trust in God to guard her chastity, not a sale of her, noting that both kings returned her untouched.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.49Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine denies there was any rivalry of lust among Jacob's wives, explaining Leah's hiring of Jacob as Rachel's transfer of her turn under the mutual marital right.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.61Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine judges that Judah sinned in going to a supposed harlot and Tamar in conceiving outside marriage, though with a better motive, and that Judah's “she is more righteous than I” only compares them.
Canon 17Anonymous · ca. 397–400 · A married man with a concubine is excluded from communion, but an unmarried man faithful to one concubine is not.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · In the case of the incestuous man at Corinth, Paul joined the rod with love: he called the church to mourn, handed the sinner to Satan for his salvation, told them to correct him as a brother, and later to forgive and comfort him, lest Satan break the bond of peace.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 20–21Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Two questions: why Christ called the apostles fishers of men (men must die to their old life); and whether monks troubled by involuntary sexual dreams must abstain from communion (no: dreams are not in our power; only delight in them is culpable, and grief and tears suffice).
On the Good of Marriage 4Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Marital faithfulness is a great good; its violation is adultery, and breaking an adulterous pact to return to one's spouse is not faithlessness.
On the Good of Marriage 5Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Augustine asks whether a faithful sexual union without intention of marriage or openness to children is a marriage, and distinguishes the faults of spouses from marriage itself.
On the Good of Marriage 8Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Marriage and continence are two goods, one better, not two evils; Augustine illustrates this with Martha and Mary, Susanna, Anna, and the Virgin Mary.
On the Good of Marriage 11Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Marriage itself is not a sin; what the apostle pardons is intercourse beyond the purpose of procreation, which marriage excuses.
On the Good of Marriage 12Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Augustine ranks sexual sins and says the honor of marriage lies in chaste procreation and faithful rendering of the marital debt.
On the Good of Marriage 18Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Augustine compares intercourse with eating: both involve natural pleasure, both have lawful and unlawful uses, and the patriarchs used marriage as the apostles used food.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 12.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Sexual images in dreams, and the bodily results that follow, are not sins, since the dreamer cannot distinguish image from body; yet a good disposition of soul can show itself even in sleep, as Solomon asked for wisdom in a dream.
Letter 6 to Exsuperius, chapter 4Innocent I, bishop of Rome · 401–417 · Innocent explains that adultery is condemned equally in both sexes, and that adulterous wives are more often excommunicated only because husbands report them while wives do not accuse their husbands.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 9.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Those who fear God only as an adulterous wife fears her husband should be displeased with themselves; God, unlike a husband, sees everything, so we must acknowledge our sins for him to forgive.
City of God 1.16Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine begins to answer pagan taunts about women, including consecrated virgins, raped during the sack, holding that chastity is a virtue of the will which another's violence cannot take away.
City of God 1.18Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that chastity, as a virtue of the mind, is not lost when the body is violated against the will, so a raped woman has nothing to punish in herself by suicide.
City of God 1.19Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine uses the story of Lucretia to show that a woman raped against her will is not guilty, and that Lucretia's suicide came from shame rather than love of chastity, unlike Christian women who chose to live.
City of God 1.25Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine rejects suicide as a way to avoid possible consent to sin, since a certain homicide is worse than an uncertain adultery that could be repented of.
City of God 3.3Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that gods who themselves committed adultery, as Venus did with Anchises and Mars with Romulus's mother, could not have abandoned Troy to punish Paris.
City of God 14.16Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Lust, in its narrow sense of sexual arousal, overwhelms the mind and does not obey the will, so that a wise married person would prefer to beget children without it if he could.
City of God 14.18Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Even lawful marital intercourse, though honorable and publicly known, is hidden from every eye, a sign that shame accompanies it as a punishment while the act itself is natural and fitting.
City of God 14.19Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The philosophers rightly saw anger and lust as vicious parts of the soul needing reason's rule, but this disorder is the sickness of sin; lust alone moves the genitals apart from the will, which is why its acts are hidden.
City of God 14.20Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The Cynics' teaching that marital intercourse may be done in public was defeated by natural shame; the shame of lust shows the penalty of the first disobedience, borne in the very organs of generation and removed only by grace.
City of God 14.21Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The blessing “Increase and multiply” was given before sin, so procreation belongs to the glory of marriage, not to sin's punishment; it would not have needed lust, whatever some interpreters hold.
City of God 14.23Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Had there been no sin, the full number of the saints would have been begotten in paradise without shameful lust, the genital members obeying the will as hands and feet do; Augustine asks pardon for treating the subject.
City of God 15.16Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine explains that brother–sister marriage was necessary at first but became wicked, since spreading kinship ties widely strengthens social love; he approves the prohibition of cousin marriage.
City of God 18.4Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine sets the death of Isaac, Joseph's rise in Egypt, and Jacob's descent into Egypt against the kings of Assyria, Sicyon, and Argos.
On Faith and Works 8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · A married candidate who refused abstinence during the days of preparation would not be baptized; how then can an adulterer who refuses to amend be admitted?
On Faith and Works 10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · A woman who unknowingly marries another's husband becomes an adulteress only once she knows; ending such unions corrects sin rather than dissolving marriages, since in the church marriage is a sacrament.
On Faith and Works 12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · Peter's call at Pentecost included “Repent,” which means putting off the old life; repentance is fruitless for one who persists in adultery.
On Faith and Works 18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · No one would baptize an idolater who refused to give up idolatry; for the same reason the sexually immoral who refuse to amend must not be baptized, since both are excluded from God's kingdom.
On Faith and Works 32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · Refusing baptism to an adulterer who will not change is not the lazy servant's fault; admitting him would teach that unrepentant adulterers inherit the kingdom, a “bad net” pastors must avoid.
On Faith and Works 33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · Excluding the openly unrepentant from baptism is not new but the church's ancient custom for prostitutes and actors; where adulterers are carelessly admitted, the practice should be corrected, not extended.
On Faith and Works 35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · Augustine distinguishes manifest adultery, which bars from baptism, from doubtful cases: marriage to unbelievers, Herod's union, a faithful concubine, and a man who remarries after putting away an adulterous wife, where Scripture is obscure and error may be venial.
On Faith and Works 37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · The absence of an explicit apostolic rule on remarried converts proves nothing; Peter's call to leave a crooked generation covers adultery, and John's demands on tax collectors show a fortiori that adultery cannot be allowed.
On Faith and Works 47Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · Those who seek baptism while professing to keep their adulteries are worse than backsliders: they refuse to leave Sodom at all, and sinning knowingly aggravates guilt.
On the Good of Widowhood 25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 414 · Time is short and desire can be restrained even by women waiting to marry; much more can it be by those who have vowed continence and so given up hope of marriage.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.96Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Israel's idolatry and adultery, like stallions neighing after their neighbours' wives, leave God no ground for mercy.
Commentary on Jeremiah 5.67Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah, adulterers burned by the king of Babylon, are identified by the Hebrews with the elders of the Susanna story, whose stoning conflicts with this account; Jerome applies the warning to adulterous false teachers in the church (Jer 29:21–23).
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 1.4.7Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Semiramis's lust ended in incest with her son.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 1.4.8Orosius · ca. 417–418 · She legalized marriage between parents and children.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 1.5.8Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Wealth bred luxury and homosexual vice in Sodom.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 5.10.6Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Ptolemy's incestuous marriage.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.5.9Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Caligula's incest and death.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.7.2Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Nero's sexual crimes.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 2.43Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Lust does not harm regenerated spouses unless they misuse it, even within marriage; intercourse for procreation is good in itself, and Paul's concession for other intercourse implies a fault.
On Adulterous Marriages 2.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Augustine rejects the double standard that punishes adulterous wives but excuses husbands, citing even a pagan emperor's rescript, and calls adulterous men to repentance.
On Adulterous Marriages 2.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Men who claim weakness as an excuse for adultery are refuted by the chastity they demand of women, such as the Syrian wives of long-absent merchants.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Against the Pelagians, Augustine sets out to distinguish the evil of concupiscence, through which original sin is passed on, from the goodness of marriage.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Chastity kept without faith is not true virtue, since everything not of faith is sin.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Union for begetting is the natural good of marriage, but true married chastity exists only where it serves the true faith.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Shame arose in the first couple not because they had been blind before the fall but because sin brought an indecent motion into their members.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · The disobedience of the sexual members is the fitting penalty of man's disobedience to God, and so the first couple covered them with fig leaves.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Like a limp on the way to a good goal, lust is an evil that marriage uses without being made evil by it.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · A believer uses his wife in holiness, not in the disease of desire, when he restrains concupiscence and uses it only for begetting children to be reborn in Christ.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Augustine explains 1 Cor 7:29–33: those who have wives should live as though they had none, not subject to carnal concupiscence.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Intercourse in marriage beyond the purpose of begetting is pardoned by Paul's concession, which implies some fault, but it is pardoned because of marriage.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Even lawful marital intercourse involves the heat of lust, the daughter of sin, so every child born of it is bound by original sin except Christ, born of a virgin.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · The sexes, their union, and fruitfulness are from God; Julian avoids naming concupiscence, which is from the world and which even he is ashamed to mention.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Julian's phrase 'natural appetite' is a fig leaf for the lust he will not name; man is God's work, but concupiscence is from the world.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · God makes each child as he made Adam from clay, but pleasure does not produce the seed, and procreation could have taken place without lust.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · As farmers sow by the will without lust, so in paradise human seed could have been sown by obedient members, and children conceived without lust and born without pain.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Julian argues from Rom 1:26–27 that sexual desire is natural and good in its measure, and presses Augustine to call marriage simply good or evil.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Paul's 'natural use' refers to the use of the members made for begetting, not to praise of marriage; unnatural acts are worse even than unlawful natural ones.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.36Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Marriage is good and lust is evil; married people use an evil well, and human nature is both God's good work and in need of a Savior.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.42Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Marriage is not the cause of sin; the lust that marriage cannot now avoid comes not from its blessed institution but from Adam's sin.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.53Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Augustine never denied bodily motion in marriage, only the shameful motion of the genitals, which would have obeyed the will like other members had there been no sin.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.55Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Julian admits that Christ died for infants; lust is a disease because it moves against the will and causes shame, as 1 Thess 4:5 implies.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.59Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Augustine ridicules the idea of unrestrained lust in paradise and argues that, even on Julian's view, concupiscence must have been corrupted by the first sin.
Questions on Exodus 71 (on Exod 21:10-11)Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Augustine discusses how to divide the Ten Commandments, the difference between adultery and coveting a neighbour's wife, and whether the commandment against adultery also forbids all sexual immorality, citing Matt 5:32.
The Institutes 5.11John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Lust cannot be conquered unless gluttony and the other vices are too, since the virtues form one whole and a city falls through any gate.
The Institutes 6.1John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · The second struggle, against sexual immorality, is the longest and needs fasting together with contrition, prayer, Scripture, work, and humility.
The Institutes 6.2John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Sexual sin comes from the heart, so the heart must be cleansed, not only the body disciplined by fasting.
The Institutes 6.3John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Unlike anger, which is cured by living among others, sexual temptation is best cured by solitude, away from its occasions.
The Institutes 6.4John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Cassian distinguishes the continent man, who resists desire, from the truly chaste, who no longer feels it; many are continent in community, but chastity is rarely attained there.
The Institutes 6.6John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Chastity is above all God's gift; it makes men like the angels and gives them heavenly citizenship while still in the flesh.
The Institutes 6.12John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Christ's saying about looking with desire places the fault in the heart, not the eyes, which is why Scripture says to guard the heart.
The Institutes 6.13John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Thoughts of women, even of relatives, must be expelled at once, crushing evil thoughts at their beginning like the serpent's head or Babylon's infants.
The Institutes 6.15John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Paul in 1 Thess 4 identifies sanctification with abstaining from sexual immorality and keeping the body in holiness, where the Holy Spirit dwells.
The Institutes 6.18John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Chastity is possible without knowledge, but spiritual knowledge is impossible without chastity; Paul excelled in both.
The Institutes 6.19John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Basil's saying "I do not know a woman, and I am not a virgin" shows that chastity lies in the heart, not only in abstinence.
The Institutes 6.20John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Perfect chastity means that nocturnal emissions occur without pleasure or awareness and only rarely, about every two months or less often.
The Institutes 12.20John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · A monk tormented by homosexual desire was told by an elder that God had allowed it because of a hidden blasphemy, which the monk then confessed.
Against Lying 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · If blasphemous lies were just when meant to expose heretics, adultery with the same aim would be chaste; since it is not, lying with the tongue for that purpose is not allowed either, for the mind directs every member.
Commonitorium 1.331–360Orientius of Auch · ca. 420-450 · Looking leads to desire; woman was the first occasion of sin through the serpent's guile, beauty ruined Troy and nearly Rome, and Scripture shows its harm in Shechem and David.
The Conferences 4.15John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The struggle of the flesh benefits us by rebuking slackness and, through involuntary nocturnal emissions after long purity, by humbling our pride and teaching that purity is God's gift.
The Conferences 5.4John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Gluttony and lust, rooted in the body, need bodily discipline and withdrawal as well as care of the soul; the spiritual vices are cured by the heart alone and are even exposed and healed by living among others.
The Conferences 5.11John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Serapion lists the kinds of each vice: three of gluttony, three of sexual immorality (intercourse, self-abuse, lustful thought), three of love of money, three of anger, two of sadness, two of acedia, and two of vainglory.
The Conferences 5.12John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Vainglory can usefully restrain beginners from lust, and it can sustain great fasts, as Macarius observed, but it holds its captive more firmly; pride is fleshly or spiritual, the latter attacking the advanced.
The Conferences 7.2John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · After long prayer, Serenus received from an angel in a vision the removal of all bodily sexual stirring; Cassian and Germanus visit him in Lent and complain about their wandering thoughts.
The Conferences 8.16John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · A monk spending the night in a cave saw a council of demons reporting to their prince; one boasted of having led a well-known monk to sin with a consecrated virgin and marry her, which the monk found at Pelusium to be true.
The Conferences 11.14John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Germanus asks whether perfect and lasting chastity, free from every stirring of lust, is possible in this life.
The Conferences 12.1John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon takes up whether the fire of desire can be wholly extinguished, explaining that the “members” Paul tells us to put to death are not bodily limbs but the members of the body of sin.
The Conferences 12.2John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon explains the five members named in Colossians 3:5: sexual immorality, uncleanness (including involuntary pollution, as in the law), lust, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry because it prefers money to God.
The Conferences 12.3John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Since Paul lists sexual sins alongside covetousness and other sins that can plainly be overcome, and forbids them even to be named, their total extinction must be possible.
The Conferences 12.4John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Ascetic labors are necessary but cannot by their own merit produce lasting chastity, which is God’s gift; the monk must desire it passionately, credit it to God’s protection, and guard it by humble prayer.
The Conferences 12.6John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chastity grows with meekness and patience, which bring the “abundance of peace” promised to the meek; until it is secure, the monk will experience relapses, which teach him that his purity is God’s gift.
The Conferences 12.7John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon distinguishes six degrees of chastity, from freedom from attack while awake to freedom from erotic dreams in sleep, beyond which lies the rare gift of Serenus; he notes differing views on the cause of nocturnal emissions.
The Conferences 12.8John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Only experience can show what is truly natural in the body; those who blame nature or God for pollutions caused by their own negligence are mistaken, and the truly pure are the same by night as by day.
The Conferences 12.9John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Germanus asks whether freedom from bodily arousal is possible in sleep, since the mind is then off guard and a full bladder causes arousal even in children and eunuchs.
The Conferences 12.10John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon distinguishes continence, which fights pleasure by effort, from chastity, which loves purity for itself and is secure even in sleep; eunuchs lack only generative power, not desire, and must also strive.
The Conferences 12.11John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · True chastity is lasting peace in which flesh and spirit agree, the passage from Jacob’s wrestling to Israel’s vision, where God dwells; involuntary arousal in sleep does no harm to the pure, and moderation even in drinking water helps, so that the flesh becomes like the burning bush that is not consumed.
The Conferences 12.16John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The key victory is to hope for chastity from God and not oneself; Chaeremon sums up perfect chastity as freedom from lust awake and from deceiving dreams asleep, and sends them to rest.
The Conferences 13.5John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon replies that the pagan philosophers had only a partial chastity, restraining outward acts but not inner desire, as sayings of Socrates and Diogenes show; true chastity, the circumcision of the spirit, is God’s gift.
The Conferences 14.16John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Nesteros replies that the impure have only skill in words, “knowledge falsely so called”; true knowledge follows the order of practical virtue, above all chastity, as the prophet, the psalmist, and Paul show, and may flourish even in the unlettered.
The Conferences 15.10John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Paphnutius, burned while cooking, learns from an angel that fire will not spare him while carnal desire remains, and concludes that conquering inner lust is greater than conquering demons; Nesteros then sends them on to Abba Joseph.
The Conferences 19.16John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · John answers that lust, unlike anger, must be starved of every memory, and that only the fully mature may test their chastity by an imagined temptation, and ends the conference at the ninth hour.
The Conferences 22.3John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Theonas gives three causes of nocturnal emissions: past overeating, a slothful mind still harboring passions, and the devil’s attempt to keep monks from communion, and warns that gluttony breeds the other vices.
The Conferences 22.6John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Theonas tells of a chaste brother whose emissions came only before communion; the elders judged it the devil’s work and bade him communicate, and the trouble ceased; he then urges moderation in food and the inner purity of the true virgin and eunuch for Christ.
Part 1, chapter 27Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Joseph, resisting Potiphar’s wife and leaving his garment in her hands, figures Christ whose garments are the martyrs, dragged by idolatry and persecution but freed in their souls.
Part 1, chapter 36Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · The ten plagues of Egypt are matched one by one with the ten commandments, each plague showing the spiritual harm of breaking the corresponding commandment.
Part 2, chapter 12Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Balaam, hired to curse Israel, blessed it and foretold the star from Jacob, but then counseled seduction into idolatry; Phinehas’s zeal and the warning to Pergamum show that such seducers are still punished or brought to penance.